1      3  1822  01382  3034 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


3   1822  01382  3034 


OLD  AND  NEW 


OLD  AND  NEW 

SUNDRY  PAPERS 

BY 

C.  H.  GRANDGENT,  L.H.D. 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON :    HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
IQ2O 


COPYRIGHT,  1920 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 


PREFACE 

ALTHOUGH  the  following  essays  and  addresses  form 
rather  a  miscellaneous  lot,  they  have  this  hi  common, 
that  they  treat,  hi  general,  of  changes  in  fashion,  es- 
pecially hi  matters  of  speech  and  of  school.  Four  of 
the  papers  have  already  appeared  hi  print:  "  The 
Dark  Ages,"  "  Fashion  and  the  Broad  A,"  "  Numeric 
Reform  in  Nescioubia,"  "  Is  Modern  Language  Teach- 
ing a  Failure  ?  "  For  permission  to  republish  these  I 
gratefully  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  respectively 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  Modern  Language  Association 
of  America,  the  Editor  of  The  Nation,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Simplified  Spelling  Board  of  New  York,  and  the 
Editors  of  The  School  Review. 

C.  H.  G. 


CONTENTS 

I.  NOR  YET  THE  NEW 3 

II.  FASHION  AND  THE  BROAD  A 25 

III.  THE  DOG'S  LETTER 31 

IV.  NUMERIC  REFORM  m  NESCIOUBIA 57 

V.  Is  MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  A  FAILURE  ?  .   .   .   .  65 

VI.  THE  DARK  AGES 92 

VII.  NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION 121 

VIII.  SCHOOL 150 


OLD  AND  NEW 


I 

NOR  YET  THE  NEW1 

Old  things  need  not  be  therefore  true, 
O  brother  men,  nor  yet  the  new. 

WHEN  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  penned  these  lines,  he  little 
dreamed  how  quickly  the  second  member  of  his  apparently 
axiomatic  proposition  would  become  obsolete.  "  New 
things  need  not  be  therefore  true  "  ?  It  sounds  like  an 
echo  from  a  forgotten  past;  yet  only  a  few  score  years  ago 
it  was  a  perfectly  safe  assertion,  as  safe  as  "  All's  not  gold 
that  glitters,"  or  "  Where  there's  a  will  there's  a  way." 

There  was  a  time  when  the  old  had  the  right  of  way  and 
the  new  had  to  turn  out  or  force  its  passage,  when  the  idea 
of  innovation  gave  pause,  when  the  successful  or  even  the 
unsuccessful  experience  of  ages  created  a  presumption  in 
favor  of  accepted  usage,  when  a  departure  from  tradition 
demanded  an  excuse.  "  I  love  everything  that's  old,"  says 
one  of  the  characters  in  She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  "  old  friends, 
old  times,  old  manners,  old  books,  old  wine."  The  same 
author  once  said:  "  When  I  was  a  young  man,  being  anx- 
ious to  distinguish  myself,  I  was  perpetually  starting  new 
propositions.  But  I  soon  gave  this  over;  for  I  found  that 
generally  what  was  new  was  false."  Of  wellnigh  universal 
application  was  the  opinion  uttered  later  by  Daniel  Web- 
ster with  reference  to  a  certain  political  platform:  "  What 
is  valuable  is  not  new,  and  what  is  new  is  not  valuable." 

1  An  address  to  the  Smith  College  chapter  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  on 
May  17,  1919. 


4  OLD  AND  NEW 

"  We  have  changed  all  that,"  as  Moliere's  quack  doctor 
observed.  The  heart  and  the  liver  no  longer  abide  in  the 
respective  places  to  which  the  former  school  of  medicine  — 
and  its  accomplice,  Dame  Nature  —  assigned  them.  "  Time- 
honored  custom  "  is  without  honor.  The  very  word  "  time- 
honored  "  is  now  used  ordinarily  in  derision.  To  say  that 
a  thing  is  old  is  to  condemn  it  without  a  trial.  An  old  style 
must  be  a  bad  one,  an  old  thought  is  not  worth  thinking. 
What  we  admire  is  the  "  music  of  the  future,"  the  "  new 
art,"  the  "  modem  school."  To  a  strictly  judicial  mind,  it 
would  seem,  the  quality  of  age  or  of  novelty  would  carry  no 
necessary  implication  of  value;  the  question  of  acceptance 
would  be  decided  on  the  basis  of  intrinsic  merit.  But  the 
judicial  mind  is  rare.  We  are  unconsciously  swept  along 
by  the  tide  of  opinion,  and  that  tide  has  set  hi  the  direction 
of  the  untried.  When  did  it  turn  ? 

I  believe  that  the  ancients  (if  one  may  venture  a  generali- 
zation) were  preponderantly  inclined  to  favor  antiquity; 
not  because  they  were  ancients  —  for  of  this  they  were 
cheerfully  unaware  —  but  because  the  notion  of  progress 
was  in  their  day  foreign  to  the  general  run  of  men.  This 
was  surely  the  case  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Only  with  the 
gradual  enlargement  of  men's  horizon  by  the  unfolding  and 
the  penetration  of  a  vanished  glorious  civilization,  and  by 
the  discovery  of  unsuspected  continents  and  races,  did  the 
taste  for  innovation  develop,  a  love  of  change  for  its  own 
sake,  an  eagerness  to  find  in  one's  inner  as  well  as  in  the 
outer  world  fresh  fields  to  conquer,  a  desire  to  exploit  the 
individual  self;  and  this  tendency  was  in  the  Renaissance 
tempered  by  a  worship  of  ancient  Rome  and  Greece.  Then 
came,  hi  the  period  we  call  neo-classical,  a  renewed  sub- 
mission to  authority,  a  satisfaction  with  things  as  they  are 
and  as  they  have  been.  Yet  we  find  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  5 

tury  again  a  growing  spirit  of  speculation,  a  battle  of  new 
ideas  —  for  in  those  days  they  still  had  to  battle. 

With  the  French  Revolution  came  an  overturn  in  the 
procedure  of  judgment.  Henceforth  it  is  to  be  no  longer 
the  new,  but  the  old,  that  must  fight  for  its  existence.  The 
burden  of  proof  is  on  tradition,  the  presumption  is  in  favor 
of  novelty.  Let  only  a  fashion  be  proclaimed  as  new,  and 
its  right  to  prevail  finds  general  approval.  The  revolution- 
ist becomes  the  popular  hero.  In  an  interesting  article  on 
" Theology  in  Paradise  Lost"  Professor  R.  E.  Neil  Dodge 
speaks  thus  of  Satan: 

But  Satan  has  a  higher  claim  on  our  attention  than  mere  epic  im- 
portance: he  is  the  greatest  embodiment  in  English  poetry  of  one 
eternal  type  of  the  human  spirit  —  the  rebel.  On  this  point,  Milton 
could  hardly  have  guessed  the  extraordinary  future  of  his  creation; 
for  the  rebel,  as  a  human  type  entitled  to  respect  and  often  to  sym- 
pathy, was  not  recognized  in  Europe  till  the  period  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Cromwell  and  the  Puritans  might  be  rebels,  but  only 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Royalists:  in  their  own  eyes  they  were  liberators. 
The  term  "  rebel "  was  in  itself  a  term  of  reproach,  and  was  to  remain 
such  till  the  days  of  Byron.  Milton,  therefore,  would  be  not  a  little 
perplexed  at  our  strange  modern  sympathy  with  Satan,  which  to  him 
would  be  almost  incomprehensible. 

This  brings  me  to  the  real  subject  of  my  discussion,  the 
fashion  of  rebellion.  For  the  insurgent  attitude  has  now 
become  a  pose.  With  sundry  ups  and  downs,  the  fortune 
of  the  Miltonic  Satan  has  prospered,  until  in  our  generation 
he  has  become  a  favorite  society  figure.  The  drawing-room 
anarchist,  the  literary  rebel,  the  artistic  iconoclast  lay  down 
the  law  for  all  of  us.  Among  the  conventions  of  the  day, 
the  most  conspicuous  is  the  convention  of  revolt.  The  only 
really  unconventional  person  among  us  is  the  one  who  is 
not  revolting  against  convention.  If  we  wish  to  praise  a 
young  poet  or  painter,  we  must  begin  by  making  it  plain 
that  he  is  a  revolter.  Magazines,  books,  pictures  are  in 


6  OLD  AND  NEW 

full  tilt  against  some  invisible  adversary;  and  one  must 
be  very  old-fashioned,  as  well  as  very  bold,  to  ask  whether 
the  mysterious  foe  can  by  any  possibility  be  a  windmill. 
Occasionally,  however,  an  elderly  swimmer  does  contrive 
to  lift  his  head  sufficiently  out  of  the  flood  to  wonder  what 
it  is  all  about. 

A  good  many  years  ago  there  was  in  Boston  a  national 
assembly  of  Christian  Endeavorers.  They  swarmed  in 
streets,  shops,  parks,  eating-houses,  one  could  scarcely  stir 
without  stepping  on  them;  and  their  general  aspect  was 
that  of  holiday-makers.  After  conscientiously  studying 
them  for  several  days,  an  observer  timidly  inquired:  "  Are 
these  people  endeavoring  to  do  anything  in  particular,  or 
are  they  just  endeavoring  ?  "  We  might,  if  we  dared,  put 
a  similar  question  to  our  revolters:  "  Are  you  revolting 
against  anything  in  particular,  or  are  you  just  revolting  ?  " 
Many  of  them,  I  suspect,  would  be  at  a  loss  for  an  answer; 
after  a  moment's  cogitation,  however,  they  would  doubt- 
less reply  that  they  were  revolting  against  the  Victorian 
Age.  And,  in  fact,  the  Victorian  Age  appears  to  be  the 
special  butt  of  their  scorn.  In  the  rich  vocabulary  of  their 
terms  of  obloquy,  "  Victorian  "  is  the  very  worst.  It  desig- 
nates self-complacency,  cant,  hypocrisy,  convention  —  not 
the  convention  of  revolt,  of  course,  but  the  convention  of 
decency.  Quite  vainly  would  one  plead  that  the  Age  of 
Victoria,  rated  according  to  genius,  bids  fair  to  take  rank 
with  the  ages  of  Pericles,  Augustus,  Elizabeth,  and  Louis 
XIV;  that  future  generations  may  possibly  regard  the  time 
of  Thackeray^  Dickens,  George  Eliot,  George  Meredith, 
Thomas  Hardy,  of  Browning  and  Tennyson,  of  Arnold  and 
Newman,  of  Mill  and  Darwin  and  Huxley  and  Spencer  and 
Kelvin  and  Lister  as  rather  a  hard  one  to  match  in  the 
annals  of  letters  and  science.  Such  a  suggestion  would,  of 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  7 

course,  appeal  only  to  critics  who  knew  the  Victorian  Age 
and  some  other  ages.  One  might,  however,  put  forward 
with  more  confidence  the  consideration  that  the  Victorian 
Age  has  been  dead  for  a  good  while,  and  that  it  is  a  pure 
waste  of  hind-leg  power  to  go  on  forever  kicking  at  a  corpse. 
Still,  even  that  argument  would  probably  be  unavailing; 
so  stubborn  is  the  corpse-kicking  habit,  so  firmly  rooted  is 
convention.  Indeed,  if  I  mistake  not,  I  have  never  come 
across  a  convention  more  hide-bound  than  this  same  con- 
vention of  revolt. 

However,  not  all  the  "  lords  of  convention  "  are  corpse- 
kickers.  Some  of  them  kick  against  things  that  are  still 
alive,  such  as  duty,  self-control,  propriety.  I  have  some 
hesitation  in  listing  propriety  among  the  living;  but  I  be- 
lieve it  has  not  entirely  succumbed  to  the  new  convention, 
although  it  has  been  the  object  of  the  most  furious  calci- 
tration.  Marriage,  of  course,  is  doomed.  So  is  work.  None 
of  the  new  ideal  heroes  are  salt-earners;  they  are  too  busy 
with  self-expression  and  self-development  and  self-analysis. 
The  more  one  thinks  of  it,  the  more  evident  it  becomes  that 
all  their  interests  begin  with  "  self  ";  they  are  addicted  to 
every  "  self  "  compound  except  self-support.  What  is  to 
become  of  us  when  we  shall  all  have  adopted  the  new  mode 
of  existence,  I  cannot  imagine.  When  all  are  parasites, 
what  or  whom  are  we  to  live  on  ?  The  new  livers  should 
meditate  on  this,  ere  they  push  their  propaganda  too  far. 
Another  danger  threatens  them.  I  have  just  expressed 
some  doubt  regarding  the  longevity  of  their  favorite  victim, 
propriety  —  "  sweet-tongued  propriety,"  as  Andre  Chenier 
once  called  it,  "  la  decence  au  doux  langage."  Now,  if  pro- 
priety should  die,  there  could  be  no  impropriety,  inasmuch 
as  the  continuance  of  the  latter  is  wholly  contingent  on  the 
presence  of  the  former.  And  if  there  were  no  impropriety, 


8  OLD  AND  NEW 

they  could  no  longer  be  improper,  and  life  would  have  lost 
its  savor.  Nothing  is  so  disheartening  to  a  shocker  as  to 
find  the  "  shockee  "  impervious  to  a  shock.  Of  Baudelaire, 
who  was  a  bit  overfond  of  shocking,  is  told  this  tale,  which 
is  probably  ben  trovato.  One  day,  having  failed  in  all 
other  efforts  to  startle,  he  dyed  his  hair  green.  A  friend 
opportunely  called,  and  the  poet  eagerly  watched  for  a 
manifestation  of  horror.  Not  a  sign:  the  caller  chatted 
unconcernedly  about  the  weather  and  the  races,  apparently 
unconscious  of  anything  unusual.  At  last  the  poet  could 
contain  himself  no  longer.  "  Don't  you  see  it  ?  "  he 
shouted.  "  See  what  ?  "  "  My  hair!  "  "  Well,  what  about 
your  hair  ?  "  "  Can't  you  see  it's  green  ?  "  shrieked  Bau- 
delaire. "  Yes,"  drawled  the  other,  with  a  yawn,  "  every- 
body's wearing  green  hair  this  season." 

I  am  gratified  to  find  myself  in  the  company  of  the  dis- 
criminating author  of  an  article  on  "  New  Poetry  and  New 
America,"  G.  R.  Elliott,  who  writes  as  follows  of  the  "  new 
poets  ": 

They  keep  on  extravagantly  wooing  nature  and  extravagantly 
repudiating  human  convention.  The  prevailing  creed  of  anti-con- 
ventionalism is  perhaps  most  striking  in  the  poetry  of  Miss  Amy 
Lowell,  since  she  pursues,  more  open-mindedly  than  any  other  present 
American  poet,  the  purely  aesthetic  aim.  She  wishes  to  be  tied  by 
no  dogma.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  is  tied  to  the  dogma  of  anti- 
conventionalism.  It  is  the  single  unifying  theme  which  runs  through 
all  her  volumes,  providing  the  substance  of  some  of  her  best  poems 
(such  as  "  Patterns  ")  and  of  some  of  her  worst.  So  fixed  has  the 
cult  become!  Mr.  Frost,  unconsciously  but  inevitably,  gives  the 
text  of  it  in  opening  his  North  of  Boston:  "  Something  there  is 
that  doesn't  love  a  wall."  That  something  is  surely  the  spirit  of  our 
new  poetry.  Its  hatred  of  the  walls  of  human  convention  has  itself 
become  conventional.  It  is  no  longer  the  spontaneous  poetic  out- 
break of  a  century  ago,  voicing  a  spontaneous  social  outbreak  against 
dead  conventions  which  had  become  intolerable.  It  is  now  a  decadent 
cult-concept  lingering  on  into  a  new  age. 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  9 

I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  quote  a  bit  more  of 
Mr.  Elliott's  criticism  of  the  "  new  poetry  ": 

Its  call  to  salvation  amounts  to  this:  our  great  need  at  the  present 
time  is  that  we  should  face,  more  frankly  than  ever  before,  our  destruc- 
tive desires,  and  in  thus  facing  them  learn  to  master  them.  In  facing 
those  desires  the  new  poetry,  as  already  stated,  has  shown  itself  adept 
and  vivid.  But  what  is  its  notion  of  mastering  them  ?  The  firmest 
answer  to  this  question  that  I  have  been  able  to  find  in  many  volumes 
of  new  poetry  is  this  of  Mr.  Oppenheim: 

Be  what  you  are; 

Then  you  can  take  your  desires  and  lift  them  and  harness  them; 

Men  that  can  harness  Niagara  can  harness  gluttony. . . . 
The  idea  of  putting  on  harness  is  so  rare  in  our  new  poetry,  and  so 
prominent  just  now  in  our  national  state  of  mind,  that  one  accepts 
it  here  with  gratitude.  If  Mr.  Oppenheim  could  only  learn  what  the 
word  harness  means  he  would  be  in  a  fair  way  toward  writing,  or 
helping  others  to  write,  some  fine  national  poetry.  But  unfortunately 
he  has  no  more  notion  than  his  colleagues  of  what  the  word  really 
means.  The  race-horses  of  desire  run  through  the  whole  course  of 
his  poetry  barebacked  and  without  bridles.  All  thought  of  being 
harnessed  in  the  sense  of  being  controlled,  either  from  within  or  from 
without,  is  expressly  repudiated  by  the  author  again  and  again.  In 
the  code  of  Mr.  Oppenheim  and  his  colleagues,  harnessing  our  desires 
means  expanding  them  in  such  a  way  that,  by  an  inexplicable  trans- 
formation, our  evil  desires  turn  into  good  desires. 

Now  that  our  author  has  led  us  to  the  Imagists,  I  sup- 
pose it  behooves  me  to  include  them  in  my  survey,  inas- 
much as  everybody  is  voluble  about  them,  following  the 
example  so  notably  set  by  themselves.  Not  without  reser- 
vation, however,  do  I  class  them  as  revolters:  they  are  by 
no  means  such  out  and  out  revolutionists  as  they  think  — 
or,  I  should  rather  say,  as  they  would  have  us  believe;  for 
I  suspect  some  of  them,  at  least,  of  knowing  more  than 
they  seem  to  know.  They  are  quite  aware,  for  instance, 
that  while  loudly  proclaiming  themselves  midwives  at  the 
birth  of  a  new  art,  they  are  really  but  imitators,  translat- 
ing into  uncongenial  Anglo-Saxon  an  artistic  experiment 


10  OLD  AND  NEW 

tried  with  some  success  in  French,  thirty-odd  years  ago. 
They  must  know,  too,  that  through  the  French  Symbolists 
they  are  the  indirect  issue  of  Walt  Whitman,  whom,  for 
some  reason,  they  seem  inclined  to  avoid  mentioning,  as 
if  he  were  a  discreditable  relation,  rather  than  the  most 
successful  member  of  the  family.  Some  of  them,  no  doubt, 
have  heard  of  versi  sciolti,  for  several  centuries  a  recognized 
poetic  form  in  Italian.  Indeed,  the  use  of  irregular  rhythms 
was  familiar  to  hoary  antiquity:  it  may  be  found  in  the 
Hebrew  psalms;  in  the  cadenced  prose  of  classic  Latin; 
in  the  cursus,  or  fixed  patterns  for  the  ends  of  clauses,  of 
the  medieval  Latinity;  in  the  Church  sequence,  originally 
a  piece  of  prose  set  to  music.  One  may  record  in  passing 
Tieck's  experiments  in  polyphonic  prose.  There  are  only 

two  new  features  in  the  modern  vers  libre  movement:  one 

t  * 

is  its  typography,  the  other  is  the  tremendous  cackle  raised 
over  it.  No,  the  free  versifiers  are  but  pseudo-Satans, 
devotees  of  near-novelty. 

The  Imagist  claim  to  the  invention  of  a  hitherto  un- 
known type  of  rhythm  is  easily  exploded.  It  has  been 
blown  to  flinders  scientifically,  with  regular  laboratory  ap- 
paratus and  uncompromising  method,  by  Dr.  W.  M.  Pat- 
terson of  Columbia,  in  his  remarkable  book  called  The 
Rhythm  of  Prose.  "  According  to  the  results  of  our  experi- 
ments," he  declares,  "  there  is  no  psychological  meaning 
to  the  claims  for  a  third  genre  between  regular  verse  and 
prose,  except  hi  the  sense  of  a  jumping  back  and  forth  from 
one  side  of  the  fence  to  the  other."  A  similar  conclusion 
may  be  reached,  without  resorting  to  time-sense  machine 
or  padded  chamber,  by  the  layman  who  will  take  the  trouble 
to  write  out  in  short,  irregular  lines  a  choice  passage  of 
prose.  The  outcome  is  an  Imagist  poem,  absolutely  indis- 
tinguishable from  an  intentional  one,  except,  perhaps,  by 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  II 

its  weightier  cargo  of  ideas.  This  experiment  has  been  most 
convincingly  performed  by  Professor  J.  L.  Lowes,  who,  by 
the  magic  of  typography  alone,  has  transmuted  various 
selections  from  the  prose  of  George  Meredith  into  Imagist 
poems  indisputably  better  than  any  which  the  Imagists 
themselves  have  produced. 

These  new  gentlemen,  in  fact,  carry  our  minds  back  to 
Monsieur  Jourdain,  who  all  his  life  had  been  talking  prose 
without  knowing  it.  Furthermore,  they  do  not  even  stick 
to  their  own  principles.  They  tell  us  that  the  unit  of  poetry 
is  the  stanza,  which  is  made  up  of  a  given  series  of  cadences, 
and  that  these  sequences  are  repeated  from  strophe  to 
strophe.  Now,  I  have  failed  to  discover  a  single  poem  in 
which  this  rule  is  observed;  and  I  have  found  only  two  or 
three  in  which  there  is  apparent  the  least  inclination  to 
follow  it.  Some  of  the  poets,  however,  would  express  the 
principle  a  bit  differently:  according  to  these,  the  essence 
of  poetry  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  happy  succession 
of  varied  intonations  —  exactly  my  definition,  acoustically 
speaking,  of  good  prose  as  distinguished  from  bad  prose. 
Some  years  ago,  Professor  F.  N.  Scott,  of  Michigan,  worked 
out  a  plausible  theory  that  the  rhythm  of  prose  is  a  rhythm 
of  pitch,  whereas  the  rhythm  of  poetry  is  a  rhythm  of  ac- 
cent. Whether  he  be  right  or  wrong,  there  is  in  my  mind 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  "  free  verse  "  is  a  particular 
development  of  prose,  and  not  of  poetry,  as  far  as  its  form 
is  concerned;  its  virtues  are  the  recognized  virtues  of  well 
written  prose,  its  failures  bring  it  into  the  category  of  medi- 
ocre prose.  To  say  this  is  by  no  means  to  condemn  it.  The 
thing  to  be  reprehended  is  the  confusing  misuse  of  the  word 
"  verse."  Tea  and  coffee  are  both  of  them  excellent  bever- 
ages; most  of  us  enjoy  them  both,  each  at  its  proper  hour; 
but  nothing  is  gained  by  calling  both  of  them  tea. 


12  OLD  AND  NEW 

Some  distance  back,  I  referred  to  Anglo-Saxon  as  an 
"  uncongenial  "  medium  for  the  reproduction  of  the  essays 
of  the  vers  libristes  of  France.  In  thus  speaking  I  had  in 
mind  not  so  much  the  superior  smoothness  and  delicacy  of 
the  French  language  as  the  nature  of  French  metrics.  The 
neo-Latins  have  never  been  accustomed  to  anything  like 
the  regular  beat  of  English  and  German  measures.  Their 
traditional  poetic  movement,  compared  to  ours,  is  so  fluid 
that  the  step  to  free  verse  is  a  very  short  one,  and  necessi- 
tates no  sharp  break  with  old  habits.  It  means  a  use  of  the 
same  phrasing  in  lines  of  variable,  instead  of  constant, 
length.  Most  of  La  Fontaine's  fables,  indeed,  are  to  my 
ear  composed  in  vers  libres.  For  a  Frenchman  the  real 
wrench  comes  when  he  tries  to  give  up  rime.  For  him, 
what  determines  the  poetic  structure  is  the  harmony  of 
endings,  as,  for  us,  the  pattern  of  accents.  And  we  need 
not  be  surprised  to  see  that  in  a  great  part  of  French  free 
verse,  the  rime  is  kept,  though  happily  released  from  cer- 
tain restrictions  that  appeal  only  to  the  eye.  In  Mallarm6, 
the  leading  theorist  of  the  Symbolists,  we  find  the  same 
confusion  of  prose  and  poetry  that  I  noted  in  our  Imagists 
—  with  this  significant  difference,  that  MaUamae"  is  con- 
scious of  what  he  is  doing.  "  Verse,"  he  says,  "  exists 
everywhere  in  language  where  rhythm  exists  —  everywhere, 
that  is,  but  in  advertisements  and  newspapers.  In  the 
genus  we  call  prose  there  are  verses,  sometimes  admirable 
ones,  in  all  rhythms.  But,  really  and  truly,  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  prose:  first  there  is  the  alphabet;  after  that, 
nothing  but  verses,  more  or  less  compact,  more  or  less 
loosely  knit.  Every  time  that  one  strives  for  style,  the 
result  is  versification.  The  official  type  of  verse  should  be 
reserved  for  moments  of  soul-crisis.  . .  .  Our  present  poets, 
instead  of  taking  it  as  their  starting-point,  all  of  a  sudden 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  13 

let  it  spring  up  to  crown  a  poem  or  a  period."  For  the 
sensitive  and  dainty  Mallarme  there  is  no  drink  but  tea. 

In  conception,  in  substance,  the  Imagist  work  is  for  the 
most  part  essentially  poetic.  It  is  poetry  of  the  most  evan- 
escent type,  so  tenuous  in  thought  and  feeling  that  only  the 
most  exquisite  diction  can  justify  its  perpetuation  in  cold 
print.  Such  justification  frequently  makes  itself  felt  as  we 
read,  whatever  doubts  may  arise  afterward.  As  we  turn 
the  pages  of  an  Imagist  volume,  we  seem  to  be  idly  watch- 
ing a  procession  of  pretty  soap-bubbles,  rising  one  after 
another,  light,  graceful,  glittering,  iridescent,  to  live  in  pure 
beauty  for  one  instant  and  then  fade  into  the  atmosphere 
without  leaving  a  trace.  In  truth,  nothing  definite  is  be- 
queathed to  the  memory.  Our  only  picture,  on  closing  the 
book,  is  the  generic  image  of  the  bubble,  the  bright,  fragile, 
aqueous  film  momentarily  vivified  by  a  gentle  breath  of 
tepid  air.  That  is  all;  save  that  we  may  recall  the  names 
of  some  of  the  poets  whose  bubbling  has  given  us  most 
pleasure.  Now  and  then  we  encounter  an  Imagist  who  be- 
longs to  a  different  class,  his  ebullitions  being  of  a  solider 
consistency.  Such  a  one  can  describe  a  woodpile  with  such 
skill  as  to  make  his  description  exactly  as  interesting  as  the 
woodpile  itself,  and  not  without  the  woodpile's  suggestion 
of  labor.  Another,  cynically  frolicsome,  may  exhaust  him- 
self in  a  macabre  orgy;  while  a  colleague  may  drearily  ob- 
serve in  the  universe  a  reflection  of  his  own  perversity  and 
gloom.  Another  still,  like  a  fanciful  will-o'-the-wisp,  ap- 
pears to  be  mischievously  eluding  pursuit,  and  can  scarcely 
be  conceived  otherwise  —  if  tracked  into  privacy  —  than 
as  all  aquiver  with  gelatinous  mirth  over  a  huge  hoax 
perpetrated  on  a  band  of  solemn  votaries. 

I  shall  now  ask  you  to  make  an  abrupt  but  alliterative 
transition,  from  poetry  to  painting.  I  might  speak  of  the 


14  OLD  AND  NEW 

musical  rebel,  if  I  knew  anything  about  music.  But  I  do 
not;  whereas  I  have  at  least  a  certain  illusion  of  familiarity 
with  painting  and  versifying  through  having  dabbled  a  bit 
in  these  two  arts.  Now  rebellion  is  just  as  rife  in  picture- 
making  as  in  verse-making. 

For  still  the  new  transcends  the  old 
In  signs  and  tokens  manifold. 

It  is  on  the  one  hand  a  more  thorough-going  rebellion,  and 
on  the  other  a  less  happy  one  in  its  results.  Few  products 
in  the  world  of  art  have  aroused  such  a  mixture  of  pity  and 
indignation  as  the  output  of  the  post-impressionists,  the 
futurists,  the  cubists,  the  vorticists,  and  all  the  other  ists 
that  are  wildly  clutching  for  a  straw  of  publicity. 

Such  labour'd  nothings,  in  so  strange  a  style, 
Amaze  th'  unlearn'd  and  make  the  learned  smile. 

Yet  the  painters  have  more  excuse  than  the  poets  for  their 
vagaries.  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  observed  that  a 
painter  generally  expects  to  make  his  living  from  his  art, 
while  a  poet  almost  always  has  other  resources.  Secondly, 
in  numbers,  good  painters  are  to  good  poets  as  a  hundred, 
perhaps  a  thousand,  to  one.  As  you  walk  the  length  of 
the  endless  picture  galleries  of  Europe,  as  you  tramp  year 
by  year,  through  the  miles  and  miles  and  miles  of  perfectly 
good  paintings  in  the  annual  Salon  of  Paris,  just  consider 
for  a  moment  what  is  the  chance  of  a  livelihood  for  a  poor 
devil  whose  only  title  to  recognition  is  that  he  paints  well! 
Why,  everybody  paints  well.  The  museums,  the  exhibi- 
tions, the  shops  are  crammed  with  beautifully  executed 
pictures  which  nobody  wants.  A  high  standard  of  techni- 
cal excellence  has  become  so  general  that  the  capable  artists 
outnumber  the  capable  purchasers.  To  paint  adequately  is 
to  be  submerged  in  the  crowd;  to  paint  better  than  anyone 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  15 

ever  painted  before  is  impossible;  the  only  possibility  of 
attracting  notice  lies  in  painting  worse  than  anyone  ever 
painted  before.  Hence  the  post-impressionists,  the  cubists, 
the  futurists,  the  vorticists.  A  frenzied  advertising,  which 
will  quickly  defeat  its  own  end;  for  already  it  is  beyond 
anyone's  power  to  do  worse  than  has  been  done,  and  all 
that  remains  for  the  notoriety-seeker  is  to  devise  a  new 
kind  of  worseness. 

I  do  not  mean  to  insist  that  no  other  factors  have  entered 
into  these  freak-producing  movements.  Human  motives 
are  always  mixed;  the  course  of  events  draws  its  water 
from  many  tributaries.  There  is  constantly  the  inborn 
human  desire  to  know,  the  craving  for  experimentation. 
Furthermore,  an  artist  who  is  very  hungry,  very  self- 
conceited,  and  very  disappointed  is  likely  to  assume,  in 
all  honesty,  that  the  world  is  rotten,  that  art  has  grown 
mechanical  and  needs  a  fresh  formula;  whereupon  he  pro- 
ceeds to  start  a  revolutionary  school,  and,  if  he  be  suffi- 
ciently unbalanced,  is  sure  to  find  a  following.  This  may 
come  to  pass  even  without  the  stimulus  of  physical  hunger, 
so  insatiable  is  the  craving  for  publicity.  Moreover,  there 
is  the  general  Satanic  tendency  of  the  tune.  It  is  almost  as 
easy  to  Satanize  in  painting  as  in  prose  or  poetry;  and 
Satan  is  so  much  more  romantic  than  Michael!  The  poet 
Richepin  inaugurated  a  subsequently  respectable  career  by 
the  publication  of  a  mildly  unpleasant  book  of  verse  entitled 
Blasphemes.  Why  should  not  a  painter  blaspheme  a  little 

—  at  any  rate,  just  enough  to  make  people  look  around  ? 
When  a  certain  French  sociologist  —  who  was  also  an  artist 

—  was  lecturing  in  Cambridge,  he  explained  to  one  of  his 
audiences  how  it  was  that  a  great  political  leader  of  his 
acquaintance  came  to  be  a  socialist.   The  leader  in  question 
originally  was  an  academic  person,  apparently  cut  out  for 


1 6  OLD  AND  NEW 

a  straight  conservative,  or,  at  most,  for  a  moderate  radical. 
But  he  was  also  an  orator,  and  an  orator  must  orate;  nay, 
when  he  has  once  tasted  the  blood  of  popular  applause,  he 
is  a  tiger,  nevermore  to  be  appeased.  Now,  a  conservative 
may  pronounce  a  smug  and  tidy  address  on  imports  and 
exports,  but  he  cannot  make  you  tingle;  a  moderate  radical 
may  utter  an  earnest  exhortation,  but  his  hearers'  flesh 
does  not  creep  nor  does  their  hair  stand  on  end.  To  thun- 
der and  lighten  on  the  platform,  one  must  be  at  least  an 
advanced  radical;  to  toss  back  one's  locks  and  roll  one's 
eyes,  one  must  push  on  into  socialism;  for  teeth-gnashing 
and  the  highest  flights  of  rhetoric,  nothing  short  of  the  most 
revolutionary  brand  will  do.  Thus  our  statesman,  as  the 
exigencies  of  his  oratorical  impulse  augmented,  progres- 
sively drifted  to  the  left.  Such,  at  least,  was  the  lecturer's 
story. 

Let  us  return  to  our  sheep.  It  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge  that  the  nature  of  these  creatures  is  to  follow 
their  leader,  even  (we  are  credibly  informed)  when  the 
leader  jumps  overboard,  or  —  to  take  a  less  striking  but 
more  frequent  occurrence  —  when  he  heads  for  the  fold. 
It  is  even  thus  with  our  rebels  and  rebel  chiefs.  Jumping 
out  of  one  convention,  they  bolt  forthwith  into  another  and 
a  narrower  one.  All  art  is  conventional,  but  to  different 
degrees.  The  conventions  of  nineteenth  century  painting, 
from  Ingres  and  Delacroix  to  Manet,  being  almost  as  broad 
and  varied  as  nature  herself,  gave  free  scope  to  any  type  of 
genius.  But  with  each  new  school  in  this  present  century 
has  come  a  narrowing  of  convention,  an  exaggeration  of  the 
factitious  and  the  esoteric.  When  we  reach  cubism,  we 
have  an  art  that  contains  no  other  ingredient  than  con- 
vention. To  the  intelligent  but  uninstructed  observer  a 
cubist  picture  means  nothing  at  all;  it  arouses  no  pleasur- 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  17 

able  sensation,  it  suggests  no  thought,  it  carries  no  message. 
Only  when  we  have  been  provided  with  a  key  can  we  pene- 
trate the  mysteries  of  the  artist's  intention;  and  then  our 
sole  feeling  is  one  of  surprise  that  he  should  have  thought 
it  necessary  to  keep  such  property  locked  up.  Our  cham- 
pions of  freedom  have  not  merely  swapped  old  bondage  for 
new;  they  have  exchanged  a  camp  for  a  cell. 

In  the  various  realms  of  art  —  in  prose  and  poetry,  in 
music,  in  painting  and  sculpture  (architecture,  curiously 
enough,  seems  to  have  been  little  affected)  —  in  the  realms 
of  art,  Bolshevism,  though  it  may  occasionally  try  our 
temper  and  interfere  with  our  enjoyment,  has  not  seriously 
threatened  our  health.  It  becomes,  on  the  contrary,  a 
real  menace  when  it  invades  the  fields  of  politics  and  of 
education.  Of  its  political  aspect  I  shall  not  speak,  for  I 
can  say  nothing  that  most  people  have  not  thought  and 
heard  many  times.  Pedagogical  revolution,  on  the  other 
hand,  has,  I  believe,  never  been  —  to  express  myself  in 
pedagogical  terminology  —  adequately  apperceived  nor 
properly  correlated  with  Imagism,  Vorticism,  and  Nihilism. 
Yet  only  a  moment's  reflection  is  needed  to  show  that  they 
all  are  manifestations  of  the  same  Satanistic  movement. 
All  are  based  on  the  assumption  that  whatever  has  been 
customary  must  be  bad,  and  that  anything  which  is  or 
seems  novel  must  be  good.  The  title  of  "  Modern  School  " 
carries  conviction,  no  matter  how  fantastic  its  program. 
Its  projector  bids  us  discard  the  studies  that  have  for  cen- 
turies been  our  intellectual  bread  and  meat,  because,  he 
avers,  they  have  not  sufficiently  proved  their  worth;  and 
then  he  would  have  us  fill  up  our  depleted  curriculum  with 
subjects  whose  worth  has  not  even  been  tried.  Always  the 
same  na'ive  faith  in  newness!  His  eventual  test  of  worthi- 
ness, it  would  seem,  is  to  be  popularity.  A  topic  which  the 


1 8  OLD  AND  NEW 

children  avoid  is  unworthy,  one  that  they  prefer  is  worthy. 
As  if  the  pupils'  choice,  in  general,  were  not  determined  by 
their  estimate  of  the  comparative  difficulty  of  the  subjects ! 
Yet  the  Modernists  assure  us  that  the  new  studies  are  to 
be  intrinsically  quite  as  hard  as  the  old.  Well,  if  they  are, 
I  venture  to  prophesy  that  they  will  promptly  become  quite 
as  unpopular;  whereupon  they  will  have  to  give  way  to 
newer  ones  whose  hardness  is  still  unknown,  and  these  will 
yield  the  place  to  newest  and  very  newest.  There  is  no 
stopping-point  in  this  course. 

The  whole  Modernist  propaganda  is  based  on  the  false 
assumption  that  knowledge  can  be  acquired  without  pain- 
fully conscious  effort,  if  we  but  pick  out  alluring  kinds  of 
knowledge.  It  ignores  the  fundamental  fact  that  to  the 
normal  man  or  woman,  and  still  more  to  the  normal  child, 
labor  is  unpleasant.  Work  was  given  to  our  first  parents, 
not  as  a  reward,  but  as  a  punishment.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  there  is  no  joy  in  work;  but  the  joy  that  is  in  it  is 
the  joy  of  accomplishment,  which  comes  into  bloom  with 
the  completion  of  the  task,  and  does  not  begin  to  bud  until 
the  end  is  in  sight.  Always  cruel  is  the  beginning,  the  act 
of  will  that  sets  the  machinery  going,  especially  if  there  be 
a  period  of  doubt  or  a  chance  of  evasion.  As  we  grow  older, 
we  lose  our  youthful  hopefulness,  our  expectation  of  a 
miracle  —  such  as  breaking  a  leg  before  school  opens  — 
that  may  postpone  the  dreaded  moment.  We  form  the 
habit  of  taking  up  each  task  mechanically,  without  debat- 
ing the  question  whether  we  shall  do  so  or  not.  Further- 
more, with  the  lengthening  sight  of  age,  we  see  the  end  from 
a  greater  and  greater  distance,  and  the  anticipatory  satis- 
faction of  achievement  sets  in  at  an  increasingly  early  stage. 
Such  is  our  reward  for  having  formed  the  habit  of  doing  our 
job,  whether  we  liked  it  or  not.  Woe  to  him  who  has  never 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  19 

subjected  himself  to  this  discipline,  who  has  never  taught 
himself  to  obey  the  command  of  duty,  who  all  through  life 
suffers  the  agony  of  dilatory  beginning  without  the  happy 
prospect  of  a  speedy  and  successful  finish ! 

The  Modernist  error  is  due  in  large  measure  to  a  con- 
fusion of  work  and  play.  Both  are  natural,  both  are  needed, 
and  both  give  satisfaction.  Yet  they  are  opposites,  not 
different  names  for  the  same  thing.  The  pleasure  of  work 
comes  from  the  consciousness  of  power,  the  stimulus  of 
tense  application,  and  the  contemplation  of  the  constant 
approach  of  the  desired  result;  its  joy  is  progressive;  it  is 
happiest  of  all  in  retrospect.  The  delight  of  play  consists 
in  relaxation,  in  yielding,  unhampered,  to  the  primitive 
instincts,  in  concentration  on  the  present  moment;  its 
satisfaction  is  rather  of  the  diminuendo  than  the  crescendo 
type,  and  attains  perhaps  its  maximum  just  before  the  sport 
really  begins.  To  turn  play  into  an  obligatory  item  in  the 
curriculum  is  to  rob  it  of  its  sunshine.  To  attempt,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  make  play  out  of  work  is  to  beget  a  monster 
that  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

The  great  danger  of  the  Modernistic  theory  lies  in  its 
coincidence  with  the  innate  laziness  of  man.  When  peda- 
gogical Satans  are  proclaiming  from  the  housetops  that 
Latin  and  Greek  and  mathematics  are  not  only  hard  and 
uninteresting,  but  useless,  how  can  children,  or  even 
parents,  be  blamed  for  demanding  that  these  outworn 
studies  be  abolished  and  replaced  by  brand  new  ones 
Vaguely  imagined  as  both  profitable  and  entertaining  ? 
Entertainment  is  what  schoolboys  are  now  led  to  expect; 
and,  as  it  is  what  their  primeval  instinct  craves,  they  are 
disappointed  if  the  school  is  not  a  hall  of  unbroken  amuse- 
ment. It  must  be  remembered  that  hi  this  country  the 
schools  are  really  under  the  government  of  the  pupils:  the 


20  OLD  AND  NEW 

American  child  governs  his  parents,  the  parents  elect  the 
School  Boards,  and  these  manage  the  schools.  Although  the 
control  is  indirect,  the  sovereignty  resides  in  the  children. 
With  the  New  Education  there  has  appeared  on  the  scene 
the  New  Educator,  known  as  the  Educational  Expert.  Do 
not  imagine  that  an  Educational  Expert  is  a  person  who  has 
ever  educated  anybody:  no,  he  is  one  whose  business  it  is 
to  tell  others  how  to  do  it;  his  expertness  has  been  acquired, 
not  hi  the  school,  but  in  the  laboratory.  In  the  old  days  a 
teacher  who  had  distinguished  himself  in  his  work  would  in 
time  become  principal  of  a  school;  then,  as  the  years  went 
on,  if  he  proved  himself  equally  capable  in  his  latter  posi- 
tion, he  might  be  made  superintendent.  That  was  the 
kind  of  expert  on  whom  we  used  to  rely.  It  is  all  different 
now.  The  teaching  and  the  supervising  functions  are  sepa- 
rate from  the  start;  some  are  trained  to  teach,  others  to 
superintend.  You  know  what  is  meant  by  an  Efficiency 
Expert  in  a  factory.  He  is  a  man  who  calculates  not  only 
the  most  economical  disposition  and  use  of  machinery,  but 
also  the  most  time-saving  motions  of  body  and  limbs,  the 
hours  of  the  day  at  which  people  can  work  under  highest 
tension,  the  proportion  of  pressure  and  relaxation  condu- 
cive to  a  maximum  output.  In  the  imagination  of  the 
workingman,  the  Expert  is  an  ogre  who  stands  over  him 
with  a  stop-watch  in  one  hand  and  a  club  in  the  other, 
ready  to  "  swat  "  him  if  he  diminishes  his  speed  by  a  frac- 
tion of  a  second  or  deviates  a  hair's  breadth  from  the  pre- 
scribed and  never-changing  movements  of  his  hands.  Now 
what  the  Efficiency  Expert  is  to  industry,  that  the  Educa- 
tional Expert  aims  to  be  to  pedagogy.  It  is  as  unnecessary 
for  him  to  have  been  a  teacher  as  for  the  Efficiency  man  to 
have  been  a  laborer.  Loaded  to  the  muzzle  with  statistics, 
principles  of  management,  educational  theory,  and  peda- 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  21 

gogical  psychology,  he  is  prepared  to  apply  to  the  children 
the  very  latest  system  of  intellectual  feeding  and  to  exact 
from  the  teacher  all  the  calculable  motions  of  maximum 
efficiency.  He  talks  a  language  of  his  own,  almost  philo- 
sophic in  its  unintelligibility  to  the  layman. 

A  man  in  all  the  world's  new  fashion  planted, 
That  hath  a  mint  of  phrases  in  his  brain. 

Above  all,  he  is  "  aggressive."  Has  it  ever  struck  you 
how  the  use  of  this  adjective  has  changed  since  Satanism 
came  into  vogue  ?  If  a  man  is  wanted  for  any  kind  of  job 
—  mayor,  floor-walker,  professor,  or  secretary  of  a  peace 
conference  —  he  must  be  "  aggressive."  School  principals, 
in  recommending  boys  to  the  college  "-'mission  committee, 
take  special  pains  to  note  whether  the  lads  are  "  aggressive  " 
or  not.  "  Smith  does  not  rank  very  high  in  his  studies,  but 
he  is  a  natural  leader,  captain  of  the  football  team,  president 
of  his  class,  and  editor  of  the  school  paper,  a  fine,  manly, 
aggressive  young  fellow,  who,  I  am  sure,  will,  if  admitted, 
do  no  discredit  to  the  college."  "  Jones  is  an  excellent 
scholar,  fond  of  books,  a  young  man  of  high  standards  and 
the  strictest  sense  of  honor,  but  not  conspicuous  in  leader- 
ship —  in  fact,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  rather  lacking  in 
aggressiveness,  a  fault  which  a  college  atmosphere  will 
doubtless  correct."  After  sundry  abortive  resolves,  I  have 
looked  up  "  aggressive  "  in  the  International  Dictionary. 
You  may  be  surprised  to  learn  that  it  means  "  tending  or 
disposed  to  aggress."  But  I  did  not  stop  there.  Following 
up  the  trail,  I  found  that  "  to  aggress  "  is  "  to  commit  the 
first  act  of  hostility  or  offense;  to  begin  a  quarrel  or  con- 
troversy; to  make  an  attack."  This  summum  desideratum 
of  Modernism  is,  therefore,  in  the  plain  English  of  a  few 
years  ago,  a  "  disposition  to  commit  the  first  act  of  hostility 


22  OLD  AND  NEW 

or  offense."  Let  us  not  forget  who  it  was  that  "  committed 
the  first  act  of  hostility  or  offense,"  who  first  "  began  a 
quarrel  or  controversy  ":  Satan. 

Fortunately  it  is  not  upon  the  child  that  the  Educator's 
expert  aggressiveness  is  wreaked,  but  upon  the  teacher. 
The  child  must  be  kept  in  good  humor,  or  he  will  become 
aggressive  himself,  and  then  good-bye  to  the  Expert.  But 
who  cares  what  happens  to  the  teacher  ?  She  —  for  it 
nearly  always  is  a  she  —  ought  to  regard  it  as  a  privilege 
to  be  coached  in  the  latest  tackles,  to  be  forced  to  keep  up 
with  educational  theory  from  day  to  day,  to  have  to  devote 
her  school  hours  largely  to  experiments  and  records.  It  is 
always  a  comfort  to  know  that  you  are  doing  a  thing  exactly 
according  to  the  right  formula.  "  We  have  reached  a 
point,"  recently  declared  an  Educator  in  a  public  meeting, 
"  where  Education  is  as  exact  a  science  as  mathematics." 
Observe  what  an  advance  we  have  made  over  the  casual 
and  impulsive  Mr.  Gradgrind,  who  never  would  have  dared 
to  put  forth  such  a  claim  as  that.  Another  Expert  gladdens 
our  hearts  by  assuring  us  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  study 
algebra  or  geometry;  all  agree  in  the  doctrine  that  the  ac- 
quisition of  facts  of  any  kind  is  positively  deleterious.  I 
once  heard  a  Superintendent  exclaim:  "  At  last  we  have 
got  the  colleges  where  we  want  'em.  They've  got  to  take 
what  we  say.  If  we  say  that  a  course  in  blacksmithing  and 
nothing  else  is  a  proper  preparation  for  college,  the  colleges 
have  got  to  accept  blacksmithing  as  a  preparation."  This 
is  a  note  of  frequent  recurrence,  a  warning  note,  which 
means  that  if  our  colleges  do  not  stand  firm,  they  will 
presently  become  institutions  in  which  blacksmiths  are 
taught  the  alphabet  and  the  multiplication  table,  and  all 
education  above  the  primary  stage  will  have  vanished  from 
the  land.  If  I  do  not  quote  more  abundantly  from  the 


NOR  YET  THE  NEW  23 

utterances  of  Educators,  it  is  not  because  there  is  any 
dearth  of  material.  Such  an  idea  would  immediately  be 
dispelled  by  a  glance  at  their  Reports.  Once,  after  a  very 
full  demonstration  by  an  Efficiency  Expert,  an  auditor 
remarked:  "  You  Experts  seem  to  have  devised  a  way  to 
economize  everything  except  words." 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  our  advocate  of  black- 
smithing.  It  is  no  doubt  an  admirable  thing  to  afford 
boys  and  girls  a  free,  easily  accessible  means  of  learning 
the  trades  by  which  they  are  to  gain  a  livelihood;  and  I 
can  see  that  there  may  be  a  distinct  advantage  in  begin- 
ning this  instruction  very  early.  Self-respect,  earnestness, 
alacrity  may  well  be  increased  by  the  consciousness  that 
one  is  on  the  way  to  independence.  The  mistake  comes  in 
assuming  that  such  training  is  the  equivalent  of  education, 
in  the  sense  in  which  this  term  has  generally  been  used. 
Vocational  study  may  be  a  precious  supplement  to  educa- 
tion, but  cannot  be  a  substitute  for  it.  Unless  men  and 
women  are  to  turn  into  unthinking  mechanisms  —  as  our 
various  Experts  apparently  would  have  them  —  they  must 
possess  some  resources  outside  their  particular  work;  they 
must  acquire  some  general  outlook  on  the  world,  some  con- 
ception of  what  the  generations  of  men  have  thought  and 
wrought.  Unless  they  be  initiated  into  this  intellectual 
life  in  their  schooldays,  they  are  likely  to  remain  dummies 
ever  after  —  good  mechanics,  no  doubt,  but  failures  as 
human  beings,  and  incompetents  if  we  consider  them  as 
responsible  members  of  a  democracy.  Humanity,  after 
all,  is  more  precious  than  efficiency.  We  can  better  afford 
to  sacrifice  some  share  of  the  latter  than  to  stunt  the  former. 

The  former  it  is,  however,  that  has  been  slighted  by  our 
Modernist  revolters  —  be  they  pedagogical,  artistic,  or 
literary  —  all  of  them  prone,  as  we  have  seen,  to  tie  them- 


24  OLD  AND  NEW 

selves  up  with  arbitrary  formulas  and  to  plunge  into  the 
bondage  of  an  unnatural  convention.  A  common  tendency 
to  depart  from  the  normally  human,  in  a  chase  after  some 
variety  of  abnormal  effectiveness,  seems  to  be  the  conse- 
quence of  basing  one's  philosophy  on  the  gratuitous  as- 
sumption that  the  new  must  surpass  the  old.  As  prophets 
of  the  super-new,  our  super-efficient  revolutionists  turn 
their  backs  upon  experience,  forgetting  that  Satan  fell  be- 
cause of  overconfidence  in  his  own  efficiency.  Lest  we 
also  fall,  let  us  fortify  ourselves  against  the  foul  fiend  by 
repeating  Clough's  wise  motto: 

Old  things  need  not  be  therefore  true, 
O  brother  men,  nor  yet  the  new. 

And  let  us  join  (of  course  metaphorically)  in  the  prayer  of 
worthy  Bishop  Still: 

But  belly,  God  send  thee  good  ale  enough, 
Whether  it  be  new  or  old! 


II 

FASHION  AND  THE  BROAD  A1 

"  THERE  was  a  silence  for  a  brief  space,  after  my  some- 
what elaborate  exposition  of  these  self-evident  analogies. 
Presently  a  person  turned  towards  me  —  I  do  not  choose 
to  designate  the  individual  —  and  said  he  rather  expected 
my  pieces  had  given  pretty  good  '  sahtisfahction.'  "  Thus 
wrote  the  genial  Autocrat  in  1857.  "  Sahtisfahction  "  was 
then  one  of  those  expressions  "  that  fix  a  man's  position  for 
you  before  you  have  done  shaking  hands  with  him  " ;  a 
"  prahctical  mahn  "  was  another.  Nowadays  such  a  pro- 
nunciation would  simply  mark  the  speaker  as  a  probable 
Scotchman;  but  in  the  New  England  of  1840  to  1860  the 
broad  a,  a  sound  of  comparatively  recent  introduction,  was 
running  riot  through  countrified  and  vulgar  speech;  in 
such  words  as  handsome,  matter,  Saturday,  one  may  still 
occasionally  hear  it  from  the  lips  of  an  elderly  rustic. 

When  I  was  a  boy  of  nine  or  so,  I  struck  up  an  intimacy 
with  a  Yankee  peddler,  a  man  of  sociable  disposition  and 
infinitely  persuasive  tongue,  though  a  stranger  to  books. 
For  him  I  painted  signs  and  composed  circulars,  chiefly 
designed,  as  I  remember,  to  exalt  the  virtues  of  a  certain 
magic  liniment  in  which  he  dealt.  Would  it  were  possible 
for  me  now  to  cherish  towards  anything  in  the  world  such 
unquestioning  faith  as  I  had  in  his  liniment  —  a  faith  which 

1  Reprinted  from  The  Nation  of  January  7,  1915. 


26  OLD  AND  NEW 

I  am  convinced  the  excellent  man  fully  shared!  And  would 
that  any  journey  could  now  afford  me  such  keen  delight  as 
I  took  in  my  peregrinations  aboard  a  broom-masted  and 
pan-girt  wagon  over  the  quiet,  sun-flooded  roads  of  central 
Massachusetts!  For  by  way  of  compensation  for  literary 
services  rendered,  my  kindly  commercial  friend  used  to  let 
me  drive  his  horse.  Vivid  indeed  is  my  recollection  of  our 
halts  before  shaded  homesteads,  our  protracted  and  usually 
successful  parleys  with  lean  housewives,  hungry  for  con- 
versation. Then,  after  adequate  preliminary  discussion  of 
weather  and  harvest,  of  the  havoc  wrought  by  "  cahter- 
pillars  "  on  the  "  ahple  "  and  "  che'y  "  crop,  were  shiny 
tins  produced,  "  notions  "  of  all  sorts,  goods  for  the  "  pahn- 
try,"  "  gimblets,"  and  "  hahmers." 

"  Ahples  "  have  decayed,  "  hahmers  "  have  been  laic^on 
the  shelf.  At  present,  New  England  restricts  the  "  ah  " 
vowel,  in  the  main,  to  a  few  specific  classes  of  words  — 
especially  those  in  which  an  a  (sometimes  an  au)  is  followed 
by  a  final  r,  by  an  r  that  precedes  another  consonant,  by  an 
"  m  "  written  Im,  or  by  the  sound  of  "  f ,"  "  s,"  or  "  th  " :  as 
far,  hard,  balm,  laugh,  pass,  rather,  path.  In  the  first  two 
categories,  and  in  the  word  father,  "  ah  "  possesses  nearly 
all  the  English-speaking  territory;  concerning  the  other 
classes,  there  is  wide  divergence,  although  flat  a  appears 
everywhere  to  be  disappearing  from  words  like  balm. 
Yankeedom  itself  is  divided  over  such  combinations  as 
ant,  can't,  dance,  example,  in  which  a  nasal  and  another 
consonant  follow  the  vowel;  aunt,  however,  always  has 
broad  a.  "  Ah,"  in  this  region,  is  best  preserved  in  rural 
communities  and  among  people  of  fashion,  the  latter  being 
more  or  less  under  British  influence.  For,  in  southern  Eng- 
land, the  style  is  essentially  the  same  as  in  the  typical 
Yankee  village,  save  that  the  "  ah  "  is  of  a  broader  quality. 


FASHION  AND  THE  BROAD  A  27 

In  our  ordinary  urban  speech,  "  ah  "  before  w,  and  also 
before/,  s,  and  th  (except  in  father),  has  been  losing  ground 
of  late.  Not  long  since,  one  of  our  legislators  was  derided 
by  a  fellow  law-giver  —  presumably  a  member  of  the  po- 
litically dominant  race  —  for  saying  "  Nahahnt,"  the  only 
pronunciation  by  which  the  peninsula  of  Nahant  is  known 
to  our  native  seamen. 

In  the  United  States  beyond  the  Hudson  —  perhaps  be- 
yond the  Connecticut  —  the  flat  a  prevails  before  /,  s,  th, 
and  n  —  "haf,"  "past,"  "  rSther,"  "path,"  "chance"; 
although  there  is  a  little  "  ah  "  spot  in  Virginia.  Never- 
theless, a  perceptible  leveling  process  is  going  on,  due  partly 
to  travel,  to  the  example  of  actors  and  lecturers,  still 
more  to  schools.  Curiously  enough,  it  is  very  common  for 
teachers  in  the  "  8, "  dominion  to  inculcate  "  ah,"  and  for 
"  ah  "-born  pedagogues  to  insist  on  "  a."  Inasmuch  as  the 
"  a  "  country  is  vastly  the  more  extensive,  one  may  assume 
that  by  this  scholastic  tendency  "  ah,"  in  the  land  as  a 
whole,  is  gaining  converts  faster  than  "  &."  What  the  out- 
come shall  be,  no  one  can  tell.  Usage  is  forever  changing, 
and  almost  always  inconsistent.  The  Yankee  naturally 
says  "  cahnt "  for  can't,  but  never  for  the  noun  cant.  Of 
two  Cambridge  brothers,  aged  three  and  four,  who  had 
never  been  away  from  home  and  never  separated,  one  in- 
variably said  "  bahsket,"  the  other  "  basket,"  although 
both  parents  pronounced  "  bahsket." 

Great  have  been  the  shifts  of  fashion  with  regard  to  our 
first  vowel.  It  is  a  common  belief  that  English  and  Yankee 
"  ah  "  represents  the  older  style  of  speech;  but  the  con- 
trary is  true.  The  fast  West  is  in  this  matter  more  con- 
servative than  the  pahst-loving  East.  Earlier  English 
"  ah  "  became  "  a  "  by  the  sixteenth  century,  and  until 
1780,  or  thereabouts,  the  standard  language  had  no  broad 


28  OLD  AND  NEW 

a.  People  said  not  only  "fast,"  but  "father,"  "far," 
"  hard."  By  "  a"  I  am  designating,  of  course,  the  quality, 
not  the  duration,  of  the  sound.  Benjamin  Franklin,  who 
in  1768  recorded  phonetically  the  pronunciation  of  his  day, 
knew  no  "  ah,"  although  he  maintained  that  additional 
letters  were  needed  to  represent  two  other  vowels,  the  "  u  " 
of  hut  and  the  "  aw  "  of  law.  This  was  in  his  Scheme  for  a 
New  Alphabet  and  a  Reformed  Mode  of  Spelling.  Sheridan, 
in  1780,  has  no  "  ah  "  in  his  list  of  vowel  sounds.  Not  until 
1784  do  we  come  upon  something  like  it,  in  Nares's  Ele- 
ments of  Orthoepy  (London).  Seven  years  later,  Walker 
reports  a  practice  that  is  virtually  the  present  southern 
English  one.  The  evidence  we  possess  seems  to  indicate 
a  very  sudden  incursion  of  "  ah  "  into  London  speech  be- 
tween 1780  and  1790.  For  many  years  after  that,  however, 
"  ah  "  and  "  £  "  contended  for  the  supremacy. 

In  America,  it  would  appear,  broad  a  was  slower  in  get- 
ting a  foothold.  Very  few  traces  of  it  are  to  be  found  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  Noah  Webster,  in  his  Dissertations  on 
the  English  Language,  1789,  prefers  "  a  "  even  in  aunt,  as 
well  as  in  jaunt,  sauce;  but  in  1806  he  finds  a  place  for 
"  Italian  a  "  in  such  words  as  ask,  dance,  demand,  father, 
psalm.  Yet  Alden,  in  1813  (An  Introduction  to  Spelling  and 
Reading,  sixth  edition),  gives  no  recognition  to  the  new 
sound,  prescribing  "  bark  "  with  the  vowel  of  back,  and 
"  lawf "  for  laugh.  Meanwhile,  contradictory  testimony 
comes  from  an  Essai  Raisonne  sur  la  Grammaire  et  la  Pro- 
nonciation  Angloise  a  I'usage  des  Francois  qui  desirent  d'ap- 
prendre  I'Anglois,  par  Duncan  Mackintosh  et  ses  deux  filles, 
Boston,  1797,  in  which,  besides  the  usual  drt,  fdr,  Idrge, 
bdth,  ddnce,  qudff,  etc.,  we  are  confronted  with  "  ah  "  in 
arm  and  in  are  —  this  latter  word  being  elsewhere  in  the 
eighteenth  century  always  described  as  "air."  Further- 


FASHION  AND  THE  BROAD  A  29 

more,  Mackintosh  would  have  us  pronounce  "  ah  "  in  a 
long  list  of  words  in  which  present-day  Boston  knows  only 
"a":  Daniel,  for  instance,  Italian,  imagine,  navigate, 
Paris,  rational,  travel,  satisfy,  and  so  on.  One  cannot  help 
suspecting  a  Scottish  strain  in  his  pronunciation;  and  this 
suspicion  is  confirmed  by  his  remark  that  it  takes  a  very 
delicate  ear  to  distinguish  the  i  of  bid  and  hit  from  the  u  of 
bud  and  hut. 

In  1830  appeared  Worcester's  first  dictionary,  contain- 
ing both  "  ah  "  and  a  sound  intermediate  between  "  ah  " 
and  "  a,"  which  latter  he  recommends  —  as  some  of  his 
English  predecessors  had  done  —  for  use  before/,  s,  th,  and 
nasals.  "  To  pronounce  the  words,  fast,  last,  glass,  grass, 
dance,  etc.,"  he  declares,  "  with  the  proper  sound  of  short 
a  as  in  hat,  has  the  appearance  of  affectation;  and  to  pro- 
nounce them  with  the  full  Italian  sound  of  a,  as  in  part, 
father,  seems  to  border  on  vulgarism."  The  compromise 
vowel  which  he,  and  others,  tried  to  introduce,  never  met 
with  much  success.  It  is  too  closely  akin  to  the  two  ex- 
tremes. In  New  England  especially,  where  "  ah  "  and  "  a  " 
are  less  remote  from  each  other  than  in  most  of  the  present 
English-speaking  world,  it  is  hard  to  establish  a  vowel  be- 
tween them.  Li  spite  of  dictionaries  and  teachers,  people 
have  continued  to  use,  in  the  doubtful  words  as  hi  the 
others,  either  the  broad  or  the  flat  a. 

From  Worcester's  statement,  and  from  other  evidence, 
we  may  infer  that  "  ah  ':  first  prevailed  in  vulgar  speech, 
and  that  "  fast,"  as  late  as  1830,  retained  a  flavor  of  by- 
gone preciosity.  Today,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  most  Americans,  "  fahst "  implies  a  striving  after 
old-world  elegance,  while  "  fast  "  is  characteristic  of  up-to- 
date  democracy.  Thus  do  we  change  our  vowels,  as  our 
garments,  in  accordance  with  the  inscrutible  decrees  of 


30  OLD  AND  NEW 

Fashion.  The  pride  of  yesterday  is  the  scorn  of  today. 
Broadway  Jones  would  despise  both  the  sartorial  and  the 
linguistic  style  which  to  "  the  young  man  whom  they  call 
John  "  (for  I  am  sure  it  was  he)  gave  unqualified  "  sahtis- 
fahction.' 


Ill 

THE  DOG'S  LETTER 

HUMANITY'S  most  primitive  satisfaction,  next  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  physical  needs,  is  the  sense  of  power.  Before  the 
child  has  acquired  the  art  of  standing  on  two  limbs,  he  finds 
a  way  of  gratifying  man's  innate  desire  to  be  a  controlling 
factor  in  the  universe.  At  first  by  repeated  accident,  then 
by  vaguely  conceived  experiment,  he  learns  that  certain 
movements  of  his  hands  or  feet  —  certain  muscular  con- 
tractions that  can  be  produced  at  will  —  are  capable  of 
causing  results  perceptible  to  eye  and  ear,  nay,  startling 
and  momentous  in  the  little  world  he  inhabits.  Adult  life 
holds  in  reserve  no  joy  so  complete  as  that  of  shattering, 
with  one  swift  touch,  an  elaborately  constructed  pinnacle 
of  blocks.  Indeed,  so  keen  is  the  pleasure,  and  so  impatient 
the  expectation,  that  ofttimes  the  craving  defeats  its  own 
end,  prematurely  launching  the  fateful  blow  and  demolish- 
ing the  edifice  ere  the  height  thereof  is  sufficient  to  generate 
a  complete  portion  of  uproar  in  its  demolition;  even  as  the 
over-ambitious  statesman,  snatching  at  the  crown  before 
his  popularity  is  ripe,  may  have  to  content  himself  with  a 
lieutenant-governorship. 

"  The  sports  of  grown-ups,"  wrote  St.  Augustine,  "  are 
called  business;  but  when  children  indulge  in  like  business, 
the  grown-ups  punish  them."  Tragic  is  the  tune  when  the 
infant  transfers  his  attention  from  blocks  to  vases,  flower- 
pots, or  fragile  articles  of  furniture.  Then  he  experiences, 
to  his  amazement  and  rage,  the  fickleness  of  favor;  ap- 

31 


32  OLD  AND  NEW 

proving  smiles  are  turned  to  scowls,  sweet  baby-talk  to 
words  of  harshness,  caresses  perhaps  to  disgraceful  smacks. 
Fortunately  the  outraged  autocrat  has  at  his  command  a 
means  of  coercion  acquired  long  before  the  block-building 
age,  a  method  discovered  and  assiduously  practised  in  the 
early  days  of  cradlehood.  By  the  proper  exercise  of  dia- 
phragm, larynx,  and  jaw  —  an  exercise  usually  begun  at 
the  moment  of  entrance  into  this  world  of  sorrow  —  he  can 
create  an  aerial  disturbance,  perceived  by  the  ear  as  sound, 
which  will  compel  attention  and,  not  infrequently,  obedi- 
ence. Scientific  experiment  has  ascertained  how  many 
trials  are  needed  by  a  rat  to  grasp  the  idea  that  by  taking 
a  particular  turn  or  giving  a  special  push  he  can  penetrate 
from  one  chamber  of  his  prison-house  to  a  more  desirable 
one;  but  who  shall  say  how  quickly  the  babe  apprehends 
the  relation  between  the  causative  howl  and  its  effect,  the 
demanded  ministration  ? 

"  The  first  cries  of  babies  are  entreaties;  if  one  is  not 
careful,  they  soon  become  orders."  So  says  Rousseau. 
"  Children  begin  by  getting  assistance,  and  end  by  getting 
service.  .  .  .  When  the  infant  stretches  out  his  hand,  with 
an  effort,  and  in  silence,  he  expects  to  reach  the  object, 
having  no  estimate  of  its  distance;  he  is  simply  mistaken. 
But  when  he  whines  and  yells  as  he  extends  his  hand,  he  is 
no  longer  in  error  about  the  distance,  he  is  either  command- 
ing the  object  to  approach  or  commanding  you  to  bring  it 
to  him.  .  .  .  No  sooner  do  children  reach  the  stage  of  re- 
garding the  people  who  surround  them  as  instruments  which 
it  is  in  their  power  to  operate,  than  they  make  use  of  them 
to  follow  out  their  own  inclination  and  to  supplement  their 
own  weakness.  That  is  how  they  become  troublesome,  ty- 
rannical, imperious,  ill-natured,  stubborn  —  a  progress 
which  does  not  spring  from  an  inborn  spirit  of  domination, 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  33 

but  which  imparts  that  spirit  to  them;  for  no  long  experi- 
ence is  needed  to  perceive  how  agreeable  it  is  to  work  with 
other  people's  hands  and  to  be  able  to  move  the  universe 
merely  by  moving  one's  tongue." 

Our  tyrant,  however,  is  not  always  tyrannizing.  He  has 
his  innocuous  moments,  in  which  he  reveals  an  interesting, 
almost  attractive  side.  As  he  lies  in  his  crib,  dimly  aware 
that  by  sundry  mysterious  exertions  he  can  make  a  noise, 
he  frequently  uses  this  strange  and  fascinating  power,  not 
for  domination,  but  for  the  sheer  gratification  of  his  sense 
of  being  somebody.  Long  before  he  can  achieve  any  pre- 
concerted result  with  hands  or  feet,  he  is  able  to  produce 
intentionally  several  varieties  of  sound,  which  afford  him 
the  same  kind  of  pleasure  that  is  later  to  be  derived  from 
the  toppled  blocks.  His  joy  comes  from  the  perceptible 
realization  of  a  purpose.  Birds,  no  doubt,  rejoice  in  their 
song  for  the  same  reason.  An  act  of  volition  is  translated 
into  an  audible  product,  which,  as  time  goes  by,  is  artisti- 
cally developed,  and  which,  at  all  stages,  is  proof  of  power. 

Inasmuch  as  this  power  must,  in  the  first  instance,  be 
revealed  to  the  child  by  chance,  by  the  oft-repeated  hear- 
ing of  a  noise  inadvertently  brought  forth,  it  is  evident  that 
the  earliest  acoustic  experiments  must  be  such  as  require 
only  a  current  of  ah*  blown  through  a  vocal  apparatus  un- 
prepared. Before  anything  else,  comes  a  nasal  vowel  of 
uncertain  character;  next  follow  sundry  modifications  of 
this  utterance  by  shutting  and  opening  the  lips:  wawa, 
mama)  baba,  papa.  At  the  teething  period,  when  the  point 
of  the  tongue  instinctively  seeks  the  sore  gums,  we  begin 
to  hear  dental  consonants:  nana,  dada,  tata.  If,  in  an  ener- 
getically bright  mood,  the  child  sends  forth  a  vigorous  puff 
through  a  mouth  loosely  closed,  the  alternate  sudden  separa- 
tion of  the  lips  by  the  passing  exhalation  and  the  immediate 


34  OLD  AND  NEW 

return  of  the  pair  to  position,  allowing  an  intermittent  out- 
flow while  the  breath  lasts,  can  be  heard  as  a  purr,  delight- 
ful to  the  ear  of  the  juvenile  practitioner.  Such  a  noise 
(which  we  may  call  a  labial  trill)  is  occasionally  made  by 
adults  to  express  cold;  preceded  by  a  firm  closure  of  the 
lips  —  that  is,  a  p  —  it  may  denote  exhaustion.  This  com- 
bination, made  sonant  by  simultaneous  vibration  of  the 
vocal  chords,  is  sometimes  employed  by  German  coachmen 
to  stop  a  horse:  brr.  The  sonant  purr,  very  loud  and  shrill, 
mostly  without  the  b,  is  used  by  noisy  girls  here  at  home 
as  a  call. 

The  lip-trill  is  not  utilized  as  a  regular  element  of  speech 
by  any  civilized  people,  being  too  wasteful  of  breath  and 
too  hard  to  combine  with  other  sounds,  except  b  and  p; 
but  I  believe  it  has  been  reported  as  a  feature  of  some  savage 
tongue.  Two  other  trills,  however,  have  found  general  ac- 
ceptance as  speech  sounds.  One  is  a  vibration  of  the  front 
rim  of  the  tongue  against  the  gums  or  the  forward  part  of 
the  roof  of  the  mouth:  the  tongue's  edge,  made  very  thin, 
is  held  in  light  contact  with  the  surface  behind  the  teeth; 
it  is  now  pushed  aside  by  the  escaping  air,  now  restored  to 
its  place  by  its  own  resiliency.  This  trill,  when  sonant,  as 
it  usually  is,  we  often  call  the  "  Italian  r."  It  exacts  a  good 
supply  of  breath,  though  not  so  much  as  is  required  for  the 
labial  purr;  it  demands  also  a  nice  adjustment.  For  these 
reasons,  no  doubt,  it  is  seldom  produced  by  the  infant; 
indeed,  it  frequently  remains  a  difficult  sound  for  the  child 
who  is  learning  to  speak.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  vibra- 
tion be  made,  not  with  the  tongue-tip,  but  with  the  uvula, 
it  calls  for  little  breath  and,  once  started,  can  be  long  con- 
tinued without  exertion.  The  uvula  is  the  small  muscular 
tag  that  dangles,  in  the  back  of  the  mouth,  from  the  middle 
of  the  lower  edge  of  the  velum,  or  soft  palate.  To  produce 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  35 

the  vibration,  the  back  of  the  tongue  is  so  raised  that  the 
uvula  rests  upon  it,  fitting,  when  the  operation  is  neatly 
performed,  into  a  central  groove  which  furrows  the  tongue 
from  rear  to  front.  The  air,  as  it  runs  out  over  the  tongue, 
lifts  the  light  tag,  which  then  falls,  to  be  at  once  lifted 
again;  and  thus  arises  a  flapping  movement  heard  as  a 
trill.  When  surd,  or  voiceless,  it  is  the  usual  type  of  jota, 
the  Spanish./.  When  voiced,  or  sonant,  it  is  the  r  commonly 
heard  in  the  cities  of  France  and  Germany.  This  trill  is 
one  of  the  delights  of  early  babyhood,  even  in  countries 
where  the  sound  is  unknown  to  adults.  Lying  on  its  back, 
with  gently  flowing  breath,  the  infant  "  hurreth  "  to  its 
heart's  content,  though  nearly  always,  I  fancy,  without 
premeditation. 

Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  our  juvenile  triller  dwells 
in  a  land  where  the  trill  forms  one  of  the  recognized  elements 
of  speech.  In  this  case,  he  may  profitably  turn  pleasure 
into  business,  preserving  the  noise  of  his  early  delecta- 
tion and  making  use  of  it  in  the  more  earnest  pastime  of 
imitating  those  mysteriously  significant  sequences  of  sounds 
which  issue  from  the  lips  of  mature  experience.  If  maturity 
prefers  to  the  easy-going  flutter  of  the  uvula  a  more  exact- 
ing whirr  of  the  tongue-tip,  the  child  is  constrained  to  forget 
the  former  and  accept  the  latter,  often  at  considerable  ex- 
pense. Most  European  languages  employ  one  or  the  other  of 
these  vibrations,  which  for  the  non-trilling  foreigner  consti- 
tute the  chief  difficulty  in  the  way  of  learning  to  speak  those 
idioms.  An  Englishman  or  an  American,  for  instance,  who 
would  acquire  either  Italian  or  French  must  first  acquire 
the  vibratory  habit,  and  first  of  all  must  acquire  the  belief 
that  the  canine  consonant  is  really  a  possibility  and  a  neces- 
sity; to  which  end  he  must  gradually  eradicate  his  settled 
conviction  that  the  Italians  and  the  French  are  wrong  in 


36  OLD  AND  NEW 

pronouncing  as  they  do,  a  practice  excusable  only  in  con- 
sideration of  their  inability  to  speak  plain  English.  That 
Anglo-Saxon  is  doomed  to  failure  who  sets  out  to  conquer 
a  continental  tongue  and  fails  to  concentrate  his  attack  on 
the  r.  By  him,  the  Italian  poco  is  heard  as  porco;  and  while 
his  heart  says  carne,  his  mouth  says  cane.  Let  him  reflect 
that  in  practising  a  vexatious  and  unseemly  trick  of  internal 
gymnastics  he  is  merely  reverting  to  the  custom  of  his  an- 
cestors; let  him  remember  that,  only  a  few  generations  ago, 
the  men  of  Merrie  England  were  as  whirry  and  burry  as 
the  best  of  them. 

It  is,  in  fact,  not  an  uncommon  procedure  for  a  language, 
in  the  course  of  time,  to  relax  the  severity  of  the  whirring 
requirement  and  content  itself  with  a  little  buzz  emanating 
from  the  quarter  where  the  whirr  should  be  produced.  Thus 
the  French  or  the  German  ear  is  nowadays  often  satisfied 
by  a  weak  rasping  noise  made  in  the  back  of  the  mouth,  a 
sort  of  delabialized  w.  Similarly  English,  whose  earlier  r 
was  of  the  Italian  type,  has  in  modern  times  generally  re- 
duced it  to  a  vague  fricative,  withdrawing  the  tongue-point 
so  far  from  the  front  of  the  palate  that  a  continuous  and 
rather  spacious  channel  replaces  the  valvular  flip-flap  of 
older  days.  Spanish  seems  a  bit  inclined  to  follow  the  same 
course,  when  the  r  is  neither  initial  nor  double;  but  the 
more  vociferous  Italian  is  less  ready  to  yield.  In  a  great 
part  of  the  United  States  —  a  region,  let  us  say,  north  of 
the  Ohio  and  stretching  from  the  Hudson  to  the  Rockies  — 
the  retracting  tendency  is  exaggerated  and  the  tip  of  the 
tongue  is  curled  up  toward  the  middle  of  the  roof  of  the 
mouth,  leaving  a  curiously  shaped  passage,  which,  though 
very  wide,  strikingly  modifies  the  acoustic  effect  of  the 
outgoing  breath.  A  similar  pronunciation  may  be  heard 
in  Kent.  This  strange  sound,  which  seems  to  afford  its 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  37 

utterers  an  inexplicable  satisfaction,  does  not  convey  in 
the  least  the  impression  of  an  r  to  anyone  accustomed  to 
either  variety  of  the  trill;  it  suggests  merely  an  obstructed 
formation  of  the  preceding  vowel.  The  Middle  Western 
par ,  court,  for  example,  impress  the  unpractised  ear  rather 
as  pa,  coat  spoken  with  one's  mouth  full. 

We  have  found,  then,  apart  from  the  labial  purr,  two 
types  of  trilled  r ,  the  uvular  and  the  lingual,  and  for  each 
of  these  an  untrilled  substitute.  Which  of  these  came  first 
in  the  history  of  human  speech  ?  Inasmuch  as  the  uvular 
vibration  is  so  natural  to  the  child,  one  would  suppose  that 
it  must  have  led  the  way;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
such  was  the  case.  Perhaps  in  the  heroic  age  both  men  and 
babes  had  mightier  breath.  Hercules,  who  strangled  snakes 
in  his  cradle,  may  have  celebrated  his  triumph  with  a  lingual 
athleticism  impossible  to  an  infantile  generation  that  was 
"  orba  di  tanto  spiro."  Be  that  as  it  may,  we  can  find  no 
sign  of  a  primitive  utilization  of  the  mobile  uvula.  From 
prehistoric  days  to  the  eighteenth  century,  at  least  in 
western  Europe,  the  normal  r  appears  to  have  been  a  whirr, 
strong  or  feeble,  of  the  tongue-tip.  Beside  this,  however, 
we  must  assume  that  there  existed,  at  least  in  some  periods 
and  in  some  regions,  a  wholly  untrilled  variety;  otherwise 
we  could  never  account  for  at  least  one  peculiar  develop- 
ment that  occurred  in  several  branches  of  our  Indo-Euro- 
pean family.  In  these  —  in  Latin  and  in  Germanic  under 
certain  conditions  —  an  s  between  vowels  changed  to  z  and 
then  to  r .  Testimony  of  such  alteration  remains  in  English 
was  and  were,  in  Latin  pignus  and  pignora.  Now  this  new 
r  must  at  the  start  have  been  untrilled;  in  fact,  it  must 
have  been  closely  similar  to  modern  English  r  in  red,  which 
is  not  far  from  z.  After  coming  thus  into  existence,  the 
novel  sound  was  doubtless  assimilated  to  the  commoner 


38  OLD  AND  NEW 

trilled  r.  The  latter  seems  then  to  have  held  fairly  general 
sway  until  modern  times,  despite  some  traces,  both  in  an- 
tiquity and  in  the  Middle  Ages,  of  a  lapse  from  its  distinctive 
vibrant  quality  —  such  traces  as  change  of  r  to  d,  reduction 
of  rs  to  s,  palatization  of  r,  and  local  medieval  confusion  of 
r  and  z.  In  the  sixteenth  century  a  fashion  of  speaking  z 
for  r  sprang  up  in  Paris  and  central  France:  "  chaize," 
"  mazy,"  "  Pazy,"  as  Palsgrave  testified  in  1530  (Jehan 
Palsgrave,  L'Esdaircissement  de  la  languefranqoise,  London) 
were  used  for  chaire,  mari,  Paris.  People  said  "  Masia  " 
for  Maria,  "  ma  mese  "  for  ma  mere.  Conversely,  some 
pronounced  "  courin,"  "  rairon,"  "  sairon  "  for  cousin,  rai- 
son,  saison.  This  style  seems  to  have  died  away  about 
1620,  perhaps  leaving  as  a  permanent  memento  the  word 
chaise  beside  the  earlier  chaire.  Next  followed  the  great 
shift  from  front  to  rear  of  the  mouth.  At  the  tune  of  the 
Precieuses,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  it  would  appear 
that  the  uvular  trill  came  to  be  substituted  for  the  lingual  in 
Parisian  choice  society,  whence  it  spread  little  by  little 
through  northern  France  and  a  good  part  of  northerly 
Europe.  In  Germany  it  apparently  turns  up  in  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  At  present  this  r,  or  its 
untrilled  substitute,  is  characteristic  of  the  urban  pronun- 
ciation of  the  greater  portion  of  France  and  Germany,  being 
least  favored  in  the  south.  It  is  still  avoided  in  song  and, 
in  Germany,  on  the  tragic  stage. 

To  account  for  the  passage  from  tongue-tip  to  uvula  it 
has  been  suggested  that  in  a  chilly  climate  the  growth  of 
polished  society  and  the  development  of  indoor  conversa- 
tion may  naturally  have  led  to  the  adoption  of  less  strenu- 
ous habits  of  speech,  a  more  subdued  tone  replacing  the 
loud  voice  that  befits  life  in  the  open  air.  A  softer  voice 
means  a  less  energetic  expulsion  of  air  from  the  lungs,  a 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  39 

smaller  current  of  breath  flowing  through  the  vocal  organs. 
Now,  as  I  have  said,  to  make  the  end  of  the  tongue  vibrate, 
a  considerable  body  of  moving  air  is  needed,  whereas  a 
moderate  outflow  suffices  to  keep  the  uvula  bobbing.  A 
further  reduction  in  the  discharge  of  breath  may  have  led 
to  the  omission  of  even  this  easy  flap  and  the  adoption,  in 
its  place,  of  a  weak  consonantal  noise  produced  in  the  back 
of  the  mouth.  How  soon  this  last  substitution  occurred, 
we  do  not  know.  The  Revolutionary  dandies  known  as 
Incroyables  are  said  to  have  discarded  r  from  their  speech; 
perhaps  in  reality  they  replaced  it  by  a  very  feeble  frica- 
tive. 

Interesting  it  is  to  picture  the  advocates  of  elegance  and 
decorum  refining  not  only  their  words  but  their  tones,  mod- 
ulating their  voices  and  attuning  them  to  their  dainty  con- 
cepts, cultivating  an  internal,  secluded  coo  in  place  of  the 
more  open  and  vigorous  roll  of  the  outer  end  of  the  tongue. 
The  newer  sound,  to  be  sure,  fails  to  please  the  unaccus- 
tomed ear  of  the  modern  Anglo-Saxon,  whose  own  r  has 
been  softened  almost  to  the  vanishing  point;  but  with 
habit  comes  appreciation  of  its  gentle  effectiveness.  Much 
depends  on  the  degree  of  ease  and  delicacy  with  which  it 
is  brought  forth.  When  neatly  trilled,  on  the  stage,  it 
reveals  the  advantage  of  extreme  audibility  produced  by 
a  minimum  of  effort.  In  song,  where  a  more  voluminous 
output  of  air  is  customary,  and  the  breath  is  under  stricter 
control,  the  old  lingual  trill  appears  appropriate,  the  more 
so  since  we  consciously  or  unconsciously  associate  vocal 
music  with  Italian.  In  speech,  this  tongue-roll  is  still 
widely  used  in  rural  districts  and  small  towns,  sporadically 
in  large  cities;  some  French  actors  cling  to  it.  Many 
Frenchmen  hear  no  difference,  or  fancy  themselves  to  be 
uttering  one  sound  when  really  making  the  other.  Whether 


40  OLD  AND  NEW 

the  uvula  is  ultimately  destined  to  supplant  the  tongue-tip 
altogether,  it  would  be  rash  to  guess. 

Did  the  uvular  fashion,  in  its  spread  over  northern 
Europe,  invade  England  ?  We  have  reason  to  believe  that 
it  did.  From  tune  to  time  one  comes  across  an  individual 
speaker  who  substitutes  for  r  a  feeble  sound  very  similar 
to  w  —  identical  with  it,  in  fact,  save  that  the  lips  are 
generally  parted.  This  habit,  sporadic  hi  America,  is  by 
no  means  rare  in  the  mother  country.  A  couple  of  genera- 
tions ago,  it  was  a  regular  feature  of  dandified  pronuncia- 
tion. Now,  it  is  difficult  to  derive  this  substitute  from  any 
type  of  r ,  however  vowel-like,  except  one  made  in  the  back 
of  the  mouth;  whereas  its  evolution  from  the  uvular  con- 
sonant would  present  no  difficulty.  The  sound  is,  indeed, 
not  essentially  different  from  the  softened,  untrilled  variety 
of  uvular  r  common  in  France  and  Germany.  Moreover, 
in  Northumberland  the  uvular  trill  actually  exists  to  the 
present  day.  It  is  described  by  A.  J.  Ellis  in  his  English 
Dialects.  The  burr  is  weak,  he  says,  between  vowels,  as  in 
"  to  marry  a  very  merry  lass,"  and  in  the  ending  er;  in 
some  places  it  is  so  reduced  as  to  resemble  w.  I  have  heard 
it  quite  identical  in  sound  with  the  untrilled  French  r. 

Ellis's  "  very  merry  lass  "  is  suggestive  of  those  speakers 
sometimes  met  at  home,  particularly  in  New  England  and 
in  the  South,  who  altogether  omit  the  r  between  vowels  in 
many  words  —  oftenest,  perhaps,  in  ve'y.  Clie'y  and  be'y 
also  are  familiar  to  observers  of  the  older  generation.  That 
was  the  generation  which  bu'ied  its  fust  wife  in  '66  and 
ma'ied  its  second  in  '68.  Some  of  my  own  family  have 
lived  in  Sh'ewsbu'y.  A  curious  borderland  type  is  that 
which  sounds  its  r  before  a  consonant  and  suppresses  it 
before  a  vowel,  the  inconsistent  creature  who  is  ve'y  so'y 
to  be  late,  having  hu'ied  so  that  he  can't  hordly  breathe. 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  41 

One  would  like  to  know  whether  this  elimination  of  the 
canine  letter  came  about,  like  its  transformation  into  w, 
through  a  shift  from  the  lingual  to  the  uvular  production. 
Here  we  cannot  be  quite  sure;  but  in  all  probability  no 
such  shift  is  to  be  assumed,  only  a  gradual  fading  out  of  an 
untrilled  r  of  the  front  variety. 

Normally,  in  our  southern  states,  in  New  England,  and 
in  most  of  Old  England,  at  the  present  time,  r  is  sounded 
consonant-fashion  only  before  a  vowel,  and  then  only  as  a 
feeble  murmur.  We  say  fah,  paht,  but  rat,  try,  very.  Ele- 
gant speakers  in  England,  to  be  sure,  are  apt  to  give  the  r 
in  such  words  as  very  —  where  it  stands  between  vowels  — 
a  smart  little  flap,  which,  however,  is  foreign  to  us.  Such 
rimes  as  Maud  and  Lord,  harm  and  balm  are  called  "  Cock- 
ney rimes  "  in  Great  Britain,  "  New  England  rimes  "  in 
America  —  quite  unjustly  in  both  cases;  for  they  represent 
the  speech  of  all  the  areas  just  named.  Now,  the  distinction 
made  between  r  before  a  vpwel  and  r  before  a  consonant, 
as  in  Mary  and  Martha,  leads  to  a  double  pronunciation  of 
words  ending  in  r  —  star ,  for  instance.  When  the  muster- 
ing of  members  in  a  phrase  causes  one  of  these  words  to 
march  before  a  word  beginning  with  a  consonant,  the  r  of 
course  maintains  its  final  silence:  starlight  is  as  r-less  as 
star.  But  when  the  next  follower  begins  with  a  vowel,  the 
r  makes  itself  heard,  as  in  star  of  the  night.  The  word  star 
therefore  has,  in  our  r-slighting  speech,  two  pronunciations, 
stah  and  star,  according  to  what  comes  after  it.  So  it  is, 
potentially,  with  every  r-tailed  vocable.  Peppa  becomes,  in 
proper  company,  pepper  and  salt,  with  as  good  an  r  as  there 
is  in  peppery.  Fatha's  at  home,  but  mother  isn't.  I  re- 
member, I  rememba  the  house  where  I  was  bawn.  Stah- 
light,  stah  bright,  very  fuhst  star  I've  seen  tonight.  The  waw, 
the  long  war  is  over.  But  that  is  not  the  end  of  the  story. 


42  OLD  AND  NEW 

If  the  vowel  that  precedes  the  r  is  one  formed  by  lifting 
the  tongue  pretty  high  up,  such  as  ee  in  the  front  of  the 
mouth,  or  oo  in  the  back,  we  cannot  easily  pass  straight 
from  this  sound  to  an  r,  and  consequently  we  introduce 
an  obscure  glide  vowel  between  the  two;  that  is,  we  say, 
if  we  are  r-pronouncers,  not  beer,  but  bee-ur;  not  poor ,  but 
poo-ur;  not  door,  but  do-ur  (that  is,  in  America  —  the 
mother  country  says  daw).  Now,  where  and  when  the  r 
itself  becomes  inaudible,  its  former  presence,  in  these  words, 
is  betrayed  by  the  lingering  of  this  glide;  only,  instead  of 
gliding  to  an  r,  we  now  glide  over  it.  Hee-uh's  to  good  old 
bee-uh;  bee-ur  and  wine.  Poo-uh  man!  poo-ur  old  man! 
More  and  mo-uh.  But  there  is  mo-uh  still. 

Like  our  simian  cousins,  we  are  creatures  of  imitation. 
Our  habits  are  in  great  measure  useless  copies  of  something 
originally  purposeful.  Most  of  our  grammar  and  syntax 
is  blind  imitation  of  things  that  once  had  a  meaning.  Even 
so  it  is,  probably,  with  the  changes  in  our  vocabulary  and 
pronunciation.  Having  developed  an  enormous  number 
of  couples  such  as  star  and  stah,  pepper  and  peppa,  war  and 
waw,  we  unconsciously  increase  the  list  by  adding  to  it  all 
the  words  that  properly  terminate  in  an  obscure  vowel  or 
an  ah  or  an  aw.  To  the  pair  peppa:  pepper  and  salt  we 
assimilate  soda:  sodar  and  salt.  The  Shah,  the  Shahr  of 
Persia,  after  the  model  of  fah,  far  away.  Raw  clams,  rawr 
oysters.  Linden  sawr  another  sight.  But  inasmuch  as  the 
category  of  the  obscure  vowel  vastly  outnumbers  those  of 
ah  and  aw,  its  attractive  force  is  vastly  superior,  and  the 
type  of  sodar  and  salt  is  correspondingly  more  frequent 
than  those  of  Shahr  and  sawr.  Emmar  Eameses  and  Louisar 
Alcotts  are  not  only  far  commoner,  but  more  inevitable, 
than  rawr  oysters.  Still,  it  is  hard  drawring  the  line.  If  I 
have  heard  Yankee  schoolmistresses  teaching  their  German 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  43 

classes  ich  hdber  es,  I  have  heard  them  also  teaching  their 
French  pupils  il  ar  eu.  Obviously,  the  principle  is  this:  r 
is  a  stopper,  a  sound  inserted  to  prevent  hiatus  after  the 
obscure  vowel  and,  with  many  speakers,  after  ah  and  aw. 
We  should  use  it  also  after  the  vowel  of  fur,  if  there  were 
any  occasion;  but  it  so  happens  that  all  our  words  which 
contain  that  vowel  at  the  close  are  already  provided  with 
an  r.  However,  when  we  try  to  talk  French,  we  are  inclined 
to  say  peur  a  peu.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are  never  tempted 
to  apply  the  stopper  after  the  higher  vowels,  those  which 
call  for  an  audible  glide:  never  should  we  say,  for  instance, 
tee-ur  and  coffee  for  tea  and  coffee,  nor  too-ur  and  too  for  two 
and  two.  That  is  partly  because  hiatus  after  ee  or  oo,  if  it 
be  found  objectionable,  is  easily  and  automatically  stopped 
by  the  development  of  the  end  of  these  vowels,  respectively, 
into  y  or  w:  if  we  dislike  be  a  sport,  do  it  now,  we  naturally 
pronounce  bee-y-a  sport,  doo-w-it  now.  Another  reason  is 
that  the  r-less  forms  of  beer  and  poor  are  bee-uh  and  poo-uh, 
not  bee  and  poo,  and  therefore  they  do  not  serve  as  models 
for  be  and  do,  for  tea  and  two.  The  surviving  uh  of  bee-uh, 
poo-uh  is  a  constant  reminder  that  the  r  is  an  integral  part 
of  the  word,  not  a  mere  stopper.  Whereas  a  phrase  like 
better  and  better  is  felt  to  be  betta-r-an  betta,  the  r  belonging 
as  much  to  the  following  as  to  the  preceding  word,  the 
normal  form  of  which  is  betta.  The  French  pursue  a  similar 
course,  with  /  as  a  stopper,  when  they  say  aime-t-il  after 
the  model  of  vient-il;  and,  in  careless  speech,  with  z  for  a 
hiatus-breaker,  when  they  say  quatres  yeux.  The  practice 
I  have  been  describing,  the  use  of  r  to  prevent  hiatus,  is 
not  common  to  all  the  regions  that  keep  r  only  before  a 
vowel:  it  is  prevalent  —  indeed,  wellnigh  universal  —  in 
southern  England  and  in  New  England;  but  it  has  not 
taken  root  in  our  own  South.  A  few  Englishmen,  and  per- 


44  OLD  AND  NEW 

haps  more  Yankees,  aware  of  the  phenomenon,  have  with 
considerable  pains  rid  themselves  of  the  habit.  Among 
these  am  I. 

We  have  wandered  far  from  the  whirring  tongue-point. 
Let  us  return  to  the  history  of  that  whirr  in  English.  Said 
Ben  Johnson  in  his  English  Grammar,  printed  in  1640: 
"  R  is  the  Dogs  letter,  and  hurreth  in  the  sound;  the  tongue 
striking  the  inner  palate,  with  a  trembling  about  the  teeth. 
It  is  sounded  firme  in  the  beginning  of  the  words,  and  more 
liquid  in  the  middle,  and  ends:  as  in  rarer,  riper,  and  so  in 
the  Latine."  Apparently  the  trill  was  longer  and  more 
vigorous  when  it  was  initial.  So  it  is  now  in  Spanish;  and 
so  it  is  with  our  modern  elocutionists  who  trill  the  r.  In 
1768  Benjamin  Franklin  devised  A  Scheme  for  a  New  Al- 
phabet and  Reformed  Mode  of  Spelling,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  describes  the  production  of  our  consonant  with 
"  the  tip  of  the  tongue  a  little  loose  or  separate  from  the 
roof  of  the  mouth,  and  vibrating."  Sheridan's  dictionary 
of  1780  and  Smith's  Attempt  to  Render  the  Pronunciation 
of  the  English  Language  easy  to  Foreigners,  1795,  recognize 
only  one  type  of  r,  probably  the  tip-trill. 

Similarly  Noah  Webster's  Grammatical  Institute  of  the 
English  Language,  published  in  Hartford,  Conn,  (third 
edition  in  1784),  declares  that  "  R  always  has  the  same 
sound,  as  hi  barrel,  and  is  never  silent."  Possibly  I  am 
over-suspicious,  but  I  seem  to  detect  in  this  last  clause  a 
note  of  protest,  or  at  least  of  warning.  When  anyone  takes 
the  trouble  to  tell  us  that  a  thing  is  never  done,  we  wonder 
why  he  should  do  so,  unless  the  thing  in  question  is  done 
only  too  often.  At  any  rate,  in  his  Dissertations  on  the 
English  Language,  Boston,  1789,  Webster  confesses  that 
"  some  of  the  southern  people,  particularly  in  Virginia, 
almost  omit  the  sound  of  r,  as  in  ware,  there.  In  the  best 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  45 

English  pronunciation  the  sound  of  r  is  much  softer  than 
in  some  of  the  neighboring  languages,  particularly  the  Irish 
and  Spanish."  But  the  ninth,  or  1 794,  edition  of  his  Ameri- 
can Spelling-Book  repeats  the  asseveration  that  "  r  has  only 
one  sound,  as  in  barrel"  The  same  year  and  the  same  city, 
Boston,  witnessed  the  eighth  edition  of  a  work  by  Caleb 
Bingham  entitled  The  Young  Lady's  Accidence,  wherein  fair 
readers  are  cautioned  not  to  say  "  I  cotch  a  werry  bad  cold  " 
nor  "  the  wessel  lays  at  the  voff."  An  r-less  wharf  was 
known,  then,  to  eighteenth  century  Bostonians.  My  copy 
of  The  Young  Ladies'  and  Gentlemen's  SpelUng-Book  has 
unfortunately  lost  its  title-page;  but  I  conjecture  that  it 
belongs  to  the  same  time  and  place.  This  aristocratic 
manual  contains,  among  pairs  of  words  "  similar  in  sound," 
bust  and  burst,  calk  and  cork,  dust  and  durst,  father  and  far- 
ther, fust  and  first.  Benjamin  Dearborn's  Columbian  Gram- 
mar, Boston,  1795,  offers  a  list  of  "  Improprieties,"  in  which 
are  registered  dazzent,  gal,  kose  (coarse),  skase  (scarce),  all 
bereft  of  the  canine  letter.  Yet  E.  Hale  has  the  courage 
to  assert,  in  his  S petting-Book,  Northampton,  1799,  that  r 
"  is  formed  by  turning  up  and  quickly  vibrating  the  end  of 
the  tongue  in  the  middle  of  the  mouth."  Noehden's  Ger- 
man Grammar,  1800,  however,  admits  that  r  "is  deprived 
of  much  of  its  force  and  shrillness  by  the  English  mode  of 
pronunciation,"  and  that  "  in  English  the  sound  is  partic- 
ularly slight  at  the  end."  Jonathan  Ware's  New  Introduc- 
tion to  the  English  Grammar,  Windsor,  Vt.,  1814,  presents 
a  novel  feature,  to  wit,  a  number  of  texts  spelled  phoneti- 
cally according  to  the  local  pronunciation,  for  correction 
by  the  pupils:  here  figure  galz  and  konfield.  In  J.  A.  Cum- 
mings's  Pronouncing  Spelling-Book,  Boston  (third  edition 
in  1822),  the  "  words  liable  to  be  confounded  "  comprise 
alms  and  arms,  balm  and  barm,  burst  and  bust,  calk  and  cork, 


46  OLD  AND  NEW 

colonel  and  kernel,  durst  and  dust,  farther  and  father,  furze 
and  fuzz,  pillow  and  pillar.  Samuel  Willard,  in  The  General 
Class-Book,  Greenfield,  Mass.,  nineteenth  edition  1840,  be- 
gins bravely:  "  R  is  never  silent."  But  he  continues  thus: 
"  In  the  beginning  of  a  word,  and  when  it  comes  between 
two  vowels,  as  hi  rag  or  very,  it  has  a  great  deal  of  sound; 
but  when  it  conies  before  a  consonant,  as  hi  harm  or  bird, 
it  has  very  little  sound.  After  several  vowels,  however,  it 
is  heard  almost  as  a  distinct  syllable,  thus  hire,  more,  and 
the  like  are  necessarily  pronounced  like  higher,  mower,  while 
feared,  corn,  etc.,  differ  little  hi  pronunciation  from  fe-ud 
and  caw-un."  Elsewhere  he  adds:  "  The  long  common 
sound  of  i,  o,  and  u  is  often  pronounced  short,  so  as  to  make 
first  appear  like  fust,  worth  like  wuth,  and  burst  like  bust. 
This  is  very  improper."  Says  Lowell:  "  The  genuine 
Yankee  never  gives  the  rough  sound  to  r  when  he  can  help 
it,  and  often  displays  considerable  ingenuity  in  avoiding  it 
even  before  a  vowel." 

What  is  the  "  rough  sound  "  of  r  ?  Returning  to  1791, 
we  find  Walker  distinguishing  two  kinds  of  r  which  he  calls 
"  rough  "  and  "  smooth."  "  The  rough  r,"  he  says,  "  is 
formed  by  jarring  the  tip  of  the  tongue  against  the  roof  of  the 
mouth  near  the  fore  teeth:  the  smooth  r  is  a  vibration  of 
the  lower  part  of  the  tongue,  near  the  root,  against  the  in- 
ward region  of  the  palate,  near  the  entrance  of  the  throat." 
The  "  rough  r,"  or  lingual  trill,  is  used  before  vowels;  the 
"  smooth  r,"  apparently  a  uvular  trill,  is  used  under  all 
other  conditions.  "  In  England,"  however,  "  and  particu- 
larly hi  London,  the  r  hi  lard,  bard,  card,  regard,  etc.,  is  pro- 
nounced so  much  in  the  throat  as  to  be  little  more  than  the 
middle  or  Italian  a,  lengthened  into  load,  baad,  caadrre- 
gaad."  In  1791,  then,  while  r  before  a  vowel  was  still 
sounded  as  a  roll  of  the  tongue-tip,  r  before  a  consonant 


1 
I 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  47 

was,  according  to  Walker's  theoretical  standard,  a  uvular 
or  a  velar  sound,  and  in  point  of  fact  was  nearly  or  entirely 
silent  in  London  and  often  elsewhere.  Here  we  have  evi- 
dence of  an  ancestor  of  the  present  Northumbrian  burr  and, 
in  the  second  degree,  of  the  modern  w-like  r;  evidence,  also, 
of  an  eighteenth  century  beginning  of  the  total  suppression 
of  r  not  followed  by  a  vowel. 

Smart,  whose  Grammar  of  English  Pronunciation  ap- 
peared in  London  in  1810,  has  the  same  "  rough  r,"  but  a 
different  "  smooth  "  one,  the  latter  being  with  him  welhiigh 
identical  with  our  Middle  Western  consonant.  "  Smooth  r 
is  produced  by  curling  back  the  tongue  till  its  tip  almost 
points  toward  the  throat,  while  its  sides  lean  against  the 
gums  of  the  upper  side  teeth  and  leave  a  passage  hi  the 
middle  for  the  voice."  In  the  standard  usage  of  his  day, 
therefore,  r  is  trilled  only  before  a  vowel  —  and  not  always 
then,  for  hi  London,  he  tells  us,  "  smooth  r  "  is  often  sub- 
stituted for  "  rough,"  and  a  vowel  sound  for  the  "  smooth." 
This  common  London  practice  of  1810  is  essentially  that  of 
today,  not  only  in  London,  but  hi  southern  England,  New 
England,  and  our  South.  The  dog's  consonant,  continues 
Smart,  "  is  more  frequently  the  cause  of  a  defect  in  pro- 
nunciation than  any  other."  Some  persons,  he  says,  can 
produce  no  r;  others  have  a  guttural  burr — then  evidently 
regarded  as  a  provincialism;  the  Irish  substitute  the 
"  rough  "  or  trilled  r  for  the  "  smooth."  Some  followers 
of  Walker  and  Smart  seem  to  have  used  the  term  "  rough 
r  "  to  designate  a  consonant  r  of  any  type,  even  quite  un- 
trilled.  Thus,  no  doubt,  it  was  employed  by  Lowell  in  the 
passage  cited  above. 

*Trhat  can  we  infer  from  all  this  testimony  ?  A  natural 
conclusion  would  seem  to  be  that  the  thirty  years  from 
1790  to  1820  saw  most  of  the  development  from  a  univer- 


48  OLD  AND  NEW 

sally  trilled  r  to  the  modern  usage  of  southern  England, 
southern  United  States,  and  New  England.  Scotland  and 
Ireland  kept  the  old  trill;  northern  England,  less  conserv- 
ative than  these  countries  but  less  radical  than  the  south, 
preserved  under  all  conditions  either  an  untrilled  consonant 
or  a  burr;  our  middle  Atlantic  states  retained  or  restored 
under  all  circumstances  the  unvibrated  consonant,  which, 
in  an  exaggerated  form,  spread  over  the  Middle  West.  A 
conservative  or  reactionary  influence  in  America  was  prob- 
ably exercised  by  some  of  the  Scotch  settlements.  The 
decline  of  r  apparently  began  in  London;  it  spread  very 
rapidly  in  England  and  presently  hi  our  country.  In  the 
American  regions  affected  by  the  anti-r  movement,  the 
fashion  grew  until  it  reached  in  the  forties,  fifties,  and 
sixties  a  degree  unknown  across  the  Atlantic,  threatening 
to  destroy  the  consonant  even  when  a  vowel  followed. 
This  extreme  tendency  has  been  checked;  moreover, 
schools  and  travel  have  in  some  measure  leveled  other 
sectional  differences,  but  East  is  still  East  and  West  is 
West.  As  far  as  we  have  any  common  standard,  it  is  that 
of  the  high-comedy  stage,  which  is  based  on  the  usage  of 
southern  England. 

In  some  words  the  decline  of  r  began  long  before  1790. 
Harsh,  marsh  lost  their  r,  in  some  localities,  a  good  many 
centuries  ago.  In  1718  an  authority  named  Arnold  ob- 
serves that  r  is  silent  in  partridge,  scarce,  and  three  other 
words.  A  certain  Konig  in  1748  notes  r-lessness  in  four 
words,  among  which  are  horse  and  partridge.  In  all  of  these 
words  except  the  last  (which,  with  its  two  r's,  is  an  espe- 
cially easy  victim),  it  is  to  be  observed  that  r  was  followed 
by  an  s  or  an  sh.  By  a  curious  coincidence,  the  Latin 
language  betrays  a  similar  instability  of  r  before  s:  sur- 
sum,  for  example,  was  pronounced  susum;  dorsum  turned 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  49 

to  dossum;  persica  became  pessica,  whence  Italian  pesca, 
French  pesche  and  peche,  and  ultimately  our  peach.  Fur- 
thermore, the  vulgar  pronunciation  of  our  above-mentioned 
English  words  is  not  hahsh,  mahsh,  scahs,  pahtridge,  haws, 
but  hash,  mash,  scass,  pattridge,  hoss,  with  a  short  vowel. 
What  does  this  indicate  ?  It  means  that  the  r  disappeared 
before  the  period  when  r  regularly  affected  the  sound  of  the 
preceding  vowel,  lengthening  and  broadening  a  to  ah  and 
o  to  aw;  short  u  was  similarly  lengthened.  The  most  im- 
portant stage  of  these  changes  came  in  the  latter  eighteenth 
century.  The  words  in  question,  losing  their  r  before  that 
time,  preserved  their  earlier  vowel.  It  follows  that  a  word 
whose  vulgar  pronunciation  not  only  is  r-less,  but  shows  the 
short  instead  of  the  long  vowel,  presumably  lost  its  r  before 
the  general  r-discarding  fashion  set  in:  such  words  are  dass 
for  dar'st,  bust  for  burst,  cuss,  fust,  nuss,  puss  for  purse,  wuss 
—  all  of  them  containing  after  the  r  the  destructive  s. 
Wuth  has  instead  of  5  the  kindred  th.  Gal  seems  to  stand 
apart. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  influence  of  an  r  on  the 
vowel  that  goes  before  it.  The  type  of  r  that  we  must  keep 
in  mind  is  a  trill  of  the  tongue's  end,  the  whole  organ,  more 
or  less  wedge-shaped,  being  tilted  diagonally  up  towards 
the  gums,  to  which  its  thin  edge  is  loosely  applied.  To 
make  a  transition  to  this  posture  from  that  of  the  obscure 
vowel,  or  the  first  vowel  of  colonel,  or  the  "  Italian  a,"  is  very 
easy,  as  it  involves  little  more  than  lifting  up  the  front  rim; 
such  combinations  as  we  find  in  baker,  fur,  far  present  small 
difficulty  to  anyone  who  has  the  trilling  habit.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  tongue  has  been  bunched  together  in  the 
back  of  the  mouth,  as  in  the  formation  of  oo  or  o,  or  in  the 
front  of  the  mouth,  as  for  ee  or  ai,  the  passage  to  r  is  com- 
plex and  difficult,  especially  in  the  latter  case.  Poor  is  hard 


50  OLD  AND  NEW 

to  trill;  peer  and  pair  are  still  harder.  We  have  already 
observed  the  introduction  of  an  obscure  glide  vowel  in  such 
groups,  a  pronunciation  poo-ur,  pee-ur.  Another  and  a  more 
radical  means  of  relief  consists  in  altering  the  main  vowel 
itself,  flattening  the  tongue  toward  the  shape  required  for 
ah.  Thus,  hi  French,  the  Lathi  perjectum,  mercantem  be- 
come parfait,  marchand;  and  hi  English  we  have  clerk  and 
Clark,  merchant  and  Marchant,  Derby  and  Darby,  sergeant 
and  Sargent,  person  and  parson,  mercy  and  Marcy.  At  the 
present  day,  nearly  all  the  English-speaking  world  has  re- 
laxed the  utterance  of  vowels  before  r,  no  matter  how 
greatly  this  consonant  may  have  lost  its  asperity.  We  pro- 
nounce poor  with  the  vowel  of  put,  not  with  that  of  boot; 
beer  with  the  vowel  of  bit,  not  with  that  of  beet;  pair  with 
the  vowel  of  pet  or  pat,  not  with  that  of  pain.  Often  the 
sound  has  descended  still  lower  hi  the  scale.  Poor  in  our 
South  is  reduced  to  po.  When  oo  is  preceded  by  a  y,  it  is 
apt  to  drop  to  o  and  then  to  aw:  your  becomes  yorey  then 
yawr  and  yaw;  pure,  in  England,  is  often  pyaw,  obscure  is 
sounded  obskyaw,  furious  \sfyawrious.  The  reason  for  this 
is  that  y  demands  a  bunching  of  the  tongue  hi  the  front  of 
the  mouth,  oo  a  bunching  hi  the  rear,  r  a  slant  to  the  front; 
and  the  rapid  sequence  of  these  three  positions  taxes  too 
severely  our  indifferent  linguistic  agility.  Sure,  which  used 
to  begin  with  sy  instead  of  sh,  is  frequently  pronounced 
shore  (sho  in  our  southern  states),  shawr,  or  show.  When 
the  oo  between  y  and  r  is  unaccented,  we  reduce  it  to  the 
obscure  vowel.  After  having  coquetted  for  a  century  or  so 
with  natoor  or  nater,  nattooral  or  natteral,  usage  has  settled 
down  to  nacher,  nacheral,  pikcher,  capcher,  and  the  like, 
with  or  without  the  final  r.  The  pedantic  piktyoor  has  no 
warrant  hi  the  usage  of  good  society,  hi  the  practice  of  the 
stage,  nor  in  the  history  of  the  language. 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  51 

Now  let  us  look  at  some  of  the  principal  changes  effected 
by  a  following  r  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Perhaps  the 
most  important  is  that  which  concerns  a.  During  most  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  except  perhaps  for  a  few  foreign 
words,  there  was  no  sound  ah  in  standard  English.  The 
earlier  ah  had  become  d,  the  vowel  of  man.  Franklin,  in 
1768,  makes  no  mention  of  ah,  nor  does  Sheridan,  hi  1780. 
Not  until  1784  do  we  find  a  vowel  which  may  be  approxi- 
mately an  "  Italian  a,"  hi  Nares's  Elements  of  Orthoepy, 
London;  it  occurs  before/,  s,  th,  before  Im,  before  n  fol- 
lowed by  another  consonant,  even  in  trans-  and  in  -graph, 
but,  it  would  seem,  not  yet  before  r,  inasmuch  as  Nares 
assigns  to  clerk  and  sergeant  the  vowel  d.  Walker,  in  1791, 
is  the  first  to  record  a  return  of  the  full  ah.  He  reports  ah 
as  employed  universally  before  an  r  that  is  final  or  followed 
by  a  consonant,  as  in  car,  cart,  but  not  in  carry.  Usage  was 
in  his  time  divided  when  the  next  consonant  was  not  an  r 
but  a  spirant,  as  in  half,  pass,  path.  Before  n  with  a  con- 
sonant after  it,  ah,  according  to  Walker,  was  going  out  of 
use,  being  regarded  as  inelegant:  that  is,  fashion  was  turn- 
ing from  dahnce,  cahnjt  to  dance,  can't.  We  seem  to  find, 
then,  between  1780  and  1790  a  sudden  incursion  of  ah  — 
which  may  have  existed  considerably  earlier  in  vulgar  prac- 
tice —  into  polite  London  society.  As  far  as  the  car,  cart 
words  were  concerned,  it  had  come  to  stay;  but  with  re- 
gard to  the  half,  pass,  path  category,  and  still  ifiwe  to  that 
of  can't  and  dance,  there  is  still  bitter  strife.  In  all  the 
classes,  for  many  years  after  Walker,  ah  and  d  struggled 
for  the  supremacy.  German  grammars  written  in  English 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century  give  as  the  equivalent  of 
German  a  sometimes  English  aw,  sometimes  a  sound  be- 
tween the  vowel  of  law  and  that  of  father.  England  ap- 
pears to  have  beaten  America,  in  this  development,  by  a. 


52  OLD  AND  NEW 

decade  or  more.  The  earliest  American  mention  of  "  Ital- 
ian a  "  that  I  have  found  is  in  1806  by  Webster,  who  assigns 
it  to  such  words  as  ask,  dance,  demand,  father,  psalm;  be- 
fore r,  no  doubt,  he  took  it  for  granted.  Having  once 
established  itself,  ah  was  particularly  favored  in  New 
England  and  a  part  of  Virginia.  In  the  former  region, 
between  1830  and  1850,  it  may  be  said  to  have  raged,  in- 
fecting such  words  as  adder,  apple,  caterpillar,  hammer, 
handsome,  ladder,  matter,  pantry,  practical,  satisfactory, 
Saturday,  shadow,  sparrow. 

Next  in  importance  is  the  alteration  of  the  vowel  in  such 
cases  as  bird,  fir,  her,  herb,  earn,  pearl,  world,  word,  curl,  fur. 
In  all  these  words  the  i,  the  e  (or  ea),  the  o,  and  the  u  are 
now  pronounced  alike;  but  they  were  all  different  at  the 
start,  and  their  course  is  far  from  clear,  involved  as  it  is  in 
many  eddies  of  local  and  transient  fashion.  By  the  middle 
of  the  century  the  vowel  of  sun  had  doubtless  changed  from 
the  oo  of  soon,  pronounced  short,  to  its  present  value;  in 
fact,  we  have  evidence  that  as  early  as  1643  sun  and  son 
were  alike  (Richard  Hodges,  A  Special  help  to  orthographic, 
London,  1643).  Before  r,  both  u  and  o  —  as  in  curl,  word 
—  seem  to  have  been  spoken  as  we  speak  the  u  of  hut;  this 
is  still  the  practice  of  the  Irish.  We  have,  then,  by  1750, 
an  established  pronunciation  of  ur  and  or  as  they  are  now 
generally  heard  in  hurry  and  worry.  Long  before  this  time 
ir  had  coincided  with  er  in  a  pronunciation  which  varied 
between  the  present  e  of  merry  and  the  present  i  of  mirth. 
In  1653  Wallis  describes  the  stressed  e  of  English  "  vertue  " 
as  like  French  "  e  feminine."  Sterpin,  a  Frenchman  living 
in  Denmark,  identified  English  ir  with  Danish  0r,  hi  a  work 
published  about  1665  or  1670.  In  1678  a  Norwegian  named 
Boiling  declared  in  his  English  grammar  that  English  first, 
thirst  have  Danish  ^,  while  church,  nurse  have  u.  Cooper,  in 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  53 

1685,  makes  er  like  ur,  and  both  of  them  like  ir  in  bird.  An 
Essai  Raisonne  sur  la  Grammaire  et  la  Pronunciation  An- 
gloise,  a  V usage  des  Francois  qui  desirent  d'apprendre  VAn- 
glois  par  Duncan  Mackintosh  et  ses  deux  filles,  Boston, 
1797,  regards  the  vowel  of  cur ,  fir,  her  and  that  of  but,  under 
as  identical  with  the  French  e  oije.  Yet  even  to  the  present 
day  some  elocutionists  insist  on  giving  to  ir,  er,  ear,  as  in 
birth,  her,  pearl,  the  sound  of  e  in  merry. 

In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  we  have,  before 
an  r  that  is  final  or  followed  by  a  consonant,  a  tendency 
toward  the/«r  sound  in  two  categories  of  words:  one  cate- 
gory comprises  the  words  containing  u  or  o,  then  pronounced 
u  as  hi  hut;  the  other  contains  the  words  with  i  or  e  (or  ea), 
then  pronounced  sometimes  e  as  hi  pet,  sometimes  e  as  hi  pert. 
Between  these  two  categories  there  was  much  confusion, 
many  words  changing  their  sound  from  e  to  u.  Shifts  from 
e  toe  must  have  been  still  more  frequent.  Sheridan,  1780, 
tells  us  to  say  e  infirm,  herb,  pearl,  stern,  but  u  in  fir,  first, 
her,  stir.  Webster,  1 784,  advocates ' '  short  e,  nearly ' '  in  birth, 
firm,  earth,  person,  "  short  u  "  in  fir,  bird,  her.  Donald 
Fraser,  in  1794  (The  Columbian  Monitor,  New  York)  would 
have  us  pronounce  i  (?)  in  mirth,  girdle,  squirrel,  etc.,  but 
u  in  first,  thirst,  fir,  sir,  thirty,  dirt,  flirt,  bird,  third,  birch, 
thirteen,  shirt,  mirth  (!),  stirrup.  It  is  likely  that  authorities 
often  failed  to  mention  e  simply  because  they  did  not  know 
how  to  describe  it.  Smart,  in  1810,  evidently  recognized  it, 
but  did  not  contribute  much  to  its  general  recognition. 
Not  before  Worcester,  1830,  do  I  find  e  installed  in  the  sys- 
tem of  English  pronunciation  as  a  vowel  distinct  from  all 
others  and  as  the  regular  sound  of  er,  ir,  and  ur,  final  or 
before  a  consonant.  Among  the  German  grammars,  Follen, 
1831,  says  that  German  o  has  "  no  correspondent  sound  in 
English";  but  Fosdick,  1838,  pronounces  o  "nearly  as 


54  OLD  AND  NEW 

the  English  u  in.  fur  ";  while  Ollendorff,  1839,  defines  it  as 
English  i  in  bird.  Says  Monteith,  in  1844,  "  0  is  pro- 
nounced like  the  French  eu.  The  inflection  given  by  a 
native  of  London  to  ir ,  in  such  words  as  birth,  mirth,  is  a 
still  more  correct  pronunciation  of  the  o"  The  most  sur- 
prising feature  of  this  statement  is  the  implication  that  e 
could  seem  a  distinctively  Cockney  sound  to  a  New  Eng- 
lander  in  1844.  By  1830  the  present  standard  pronuncia- 
tion of  all  these  words  must  have  been  pretty  well  estab- 
lished. One  can  now  distinguish  three  local  shades  of 
variance,  the  common  American,  the  southern  American, 
and  the  English;  but  the  differences  are  slight. 

Startlingly  different,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  New  York 
City  substitute  for  er  —  namely,  a  combination  of  some 
kind  of  e  with  an  ee  that  is  made  abnormally  far  back  in 
the  mouth.  The  earliest  mention  of  this  pronunciation 
that  I  have  discovered  occurs  in  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes's 
Professor  at  the  Breakfast-Table,  1859:  there  the  New  York 
rendering  of  first  is  analyzed  as  "  fe-eest,"  the/e  having  the 
vowel  of  French  le.  For  lack  of  an  adequate  symbol,  dia- 
lect writers  represent  it  as  "  foist ";  and  people  who  know 
it  only  through  print  so  pronounce  it,  just  as  non- Yankee 
actors,  unfamiliar  with  the  Yankee  short  o,  say  hull  for 
whole  and  but  for  boat  and  stun  for  stone,  in  New  England 
rural  plays.  Although  this  odd  distortion  of  er,  in  such 
words  as  girl,  berth,  earn,  worst,  curl,  is  most  marked  in  New 
York  City,  it  was  formerly,  in  a  milder  variety,  extremely 
prevalent  in  Philadelphia,  and  may  still  be  heard  from 
elderly  Philadelphians.  It  is  common,  too,  in  the  Caro- 
linas,  and  is  found  sporadically  elsewhere.  For  some  reason, 
it  has  an  irresistible  attraction  for  German  and  Hebrew 
learners  of  our  language.  How  it  originated,  I  cannot  tell. 

Another  American  dialect  peculiarity  extends  over  the 


THE  DOG'S  LETTER  55 

whole  region  of  the  curled-back  r.  I  have  already  stated 
that  this  consonant  invades  the  preceding  vowel  and  im- 
parts to  it  a  strange,  stuffy  quality.  If  the  vowel  in  ques- 
tion is  in  present  standard  English  a  short  e,  the  pervasive 
r  may  transform  it  into  an  u,  changing  American  to  "  Amur- 
rican."  When  I  was  a  boy,  I  used  to  hear  English  people 
say  that  an  American  could  always  be  detected  by  his  pro- 
nunciation of  very.  Never  could  I  imagine  what  they  meant, 
until  for  the  first  time  I  happened  to  hear  a  Middle  West- 
erner's "  vurry."  "  Sturrup  "  and  "  surrup  "  represent  a 
much  older  shift;  and  "  squurrel  "  must  be  of  long  standing 
in  America. 

Before  taking  leave  of  the  "  mining  "  letter,  let  us  recall 
that  it  may  not  only  affect  the  sound  of  a  vowel,  but  take 
the  place  of  one;  that  is,  it  may  be  used  syllabically.  When 
we  say  blackberry,  we  may  utter  it  at  full  length,  just  as  it 
is  spelled.  On  the  other  hand,  we  may  reduce  it  to  two 
syllables,  saying  "  blackbry."  I  remember  hearing  a  club- 
house lecture  by  a  British  officer  who  invariably  made  but 
two  syllables  of  military.  But  we  may  steer  a  middle 
course,  allowing  our  blackberry  its  full  portion  of  syllables, 
while  suppressing  the  e;  then  we  get  "  blackb-r-ry."  So 
"  Roxb-r-ry."  "  Duxb-r-ry."  If  we  are  good  r-ists,  we  may 
even  get  in  Canterbury  two  syllabic  r's.  Similarly  a  faith- 
ful /--devotee  easily  gets  a  syllabic  r  in  "  giv-r,"  "  ov-r," 
"  und-r,"  "  sail-r."  Now  this  same  use  of  r  is  mentioned 
by  John  Hart  in  1570,  with  givr  and  undr  among  the  ex- 
amples. As  Cooper,  in  1685,  assures  us  that  final  r  was 
trilled,  we  can  imagine  what  Hart's  givr  sounded  like:  some- 
thing not  at  all  similar  to  the  "  givr  "  of  our  Middle  West, 
with  its  choked  and  vibrationless  end-syllable.  For  the 
faithless,  this  final  syllable  is  of  course  nothing  but  the  ob- 
scure vowel,  and  "  giva,"  "  ova,"  "  unda,"  "  saila  "  close 


56  OLD  AND  NEW 

exactly  like  Anna,  Clara,  Emma,  Ida,  Louisa,  soda,  sofa  — 
save  that  in  some  rural  dialects  the  latter  change  their 
terminal  vowel  to  y,  becoming  "  sody,"  "  sofy,"  and  so  on. 
Such,  in  brief,  is  the  history  of  the  canine  letter.  Born 
under  the  most  favorable  auspices,  sturdiest  of  the  conso- 
nants, it  has  partaken  of  the  softening  effects  of  civilization. 
On  European  soil  only  the  outskirts  —  Scotland,  Ireland, 
Spain,  Italy  —  have  preserved  nearly  intact  its  pristine 
strength.  Elsewhere  it  has  weakened  and  declined,  now 
transformed  to  an  internal  burr,  now  sunk  to  a  feeble  un- 
trilled  fricative,  now  become  a  mere  colorless  vowel.  In 
song  it  still  lingers,  and  to  some  extent  in  declamation. 
America  has,  in  the  main,  followed  about  the  same  paths 
as  the  parent  lands;  but  our  enterprising  Middle  West, 
unwilling  to  abandon  the  r  tradition,  has  developed  and 
cherished  an  r-substitute,  homely,  to  be  sure,  but  vigorous 
and  aggressive.  What  has  the  future  in  store  ?  Will  decay 
pursue  its  course;  or  will  a  reaction  set  in,  restoring  to  the 
English-speaking  world  a  real  r  of  some  kind,  or  a  tolerable 
substitute  ?  Will  there  be  an  interchange  between  the 
populations  that  trill  with  the  tongue,  those  that  trill  with 
the  uvula,  and  those  that  trill  not  at  all;  or  will  each  con- 
tinue to  turn  a  hostile  ear  to  the  linguistic  products  of  the 
other  ?  With  these  questions  I  have  naught  to  do.  It  is 
hard  enough  for  an  historian  to  tell  the  truth  when  he 
confines  his  statements  to  the  past. 


IV 
NUMERIC  REFORM  IN  NESCIOUBIA1 

THE  partisans  of  an  arduous  and  unpopular  movement 
ought  to  be  interested,  even  if  they  cannot  be  cheered,  by 
an  account  of  a  bold  attempt  at  betterment  hi  a  different 
but  similar  field  hi  a  distant  country.  Of  course  you  all 
know  as  well  as  I  do  where  Nescioubia  is;  and  it  is  doubt- 
less unnecessary  for  me  to  remind  you  that  the  Nesciou- 
bians,  while  they  have  long  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  a 
rational  orthography,  have  retained  to  our  day  the  practice 
of  computing  solely  with  Roman  numerals. 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  a  people  should  have 
simplified  either  its  spelling  or  its  numbers  without  having 
sense  enough  to  reform  the  other;  but  such  is  unhappily 
the  case.  A  few  years  ago  this  inconsistency  became  ap- 
parent to  some  thoughtful  Nescioubians;  and,  after  much 
private  deliberation,  they  began  openly  to  discuss  the  possi- 
bility of  substituting  for  their  cumbrous  notation  the  Arabic 
figures  long  since  adopted  by  other  nations.  As  the  Ameri- 
can papers  have  furnished  but  scanty  information  on  the 
subject,  I  venture  to  present  to  you  such  authentic  facts 
as  I  have  been  able  to  gather  concerning  the  crusade  that 
followed. 

The  would-be  innovators  brought  forward,  it  would  ap- 
pear, several  fairly  cogent  arguments.  Firstly,  they  said, 
the  teaching  of  mathematics  is  so  impeded  by  the  use  of 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  Simplified  Spelling  Board  in  New  York, 
on  April  7, 1914. 

57 


58  OLD  AND  NEW 

Roman  symbols,  especially  in  long  division,  that  Nescioubian 
children  are  fully  two  years  behind  the  youth  of  other  lands, 
spending  as  they  do  upon  the  mastery  of  needless  mechani- 
cal difficulties  the  precious  moments  that  might  better  be 
devoted  to  things  of  intrinsic  worth.  The  vast  majority  of 
them,  hi  fact,  never  learn  to  reckon  at  all,  and  simply  put 
down  as  their  result  any  alphabetical  combinations  that 
association  may  suggest,  blindly  hoping  that  the  outcome 
may  not  be  too  wide  of  the  mark.  They  have  indeed  al- 
most lost  the  sense  of  number.  Besides,  they  are  so  gener- 
ally dispirited  by  their  futile  efforts  that  they  lack  the 
courage  to  attack  their  other  studies  with  the  vigor  requisite 
to  success. 

Secondly,  an  incalculable  amount  of  time,  patience,  and 
energy  is  wasted  by  the  Nescioubian  all  through  lif  e  hi  deal- 
ing with  irrationally  complicated  sequences  of  signs. 

Thirdly,  the  commerce  of  Nescioubia  and  her  national 
influence  (which  might  be  so  beneficial  to  the  world)  are 
suffering  from  the  inability  of  Nescioubians  to  count  as 
other  people  do.  Even  professional  mathematicians  are 
seldom  quite  sure  of  their  results.  A  curious  vagueness  and 
uncertainty  have  come  to  pervade  all  Nescioubian  thought. 
The  Arabic  notation,  they  urged,  is  so  simple  and  logical 
that  it  can  be  learned  in  a  few  hours  and  can  be  written 
without  continual  reference  to  a  table.  Why,  then,  should 
we  not  adopt  it  ? 

You  would  scarcely  believe  what  a  storm  of  protest  was 
aroused  by  this  seemingly  commendable  proposal.  Bitter- 
est among  the  opponents  were  the  journalists  (or,  as  they 
are  called  in  that  country,  the  Osteocephali),  and  particu- 
larly those  who  had  never  been  able  to  count  with  accu- 
racy beyond  thirteen.  "  Underminers  of  our  civilization," 
"  destroyers  of  Nescioubian  mathematics,"  "  grotesque 


NUMERIC  REFORM  IN  NESCIOUBIA  59 

iconoclasts  "  —  these  are  a  few  of  the  epithets  hurled  by 
Osteocephalia  at  the  startled  reformers.  Arguments  seemed 
unnecessary  —  the  Arabic  numbers  were  so  funny!  When, 
however,  the  "  grotesque  iconoclasts  "  picked  up  courage  to 
ask  for  reasons,  the  Osteocephali  responded  with  one  voice: 

"  The  arithmetic  of  Romulus  and  Julius  Caesar  is  good 
enough  for  me! " 

"  But,"  said  the  reformers  timidly,  "  Romulus  and 
Caesar  calculated  somewhat  differently.  Which  style  do 
you  advocate  ?  " 

"  The  arithmetic  of  Romulus  and  Julius  Caesar  is  good 
enough  for  me  !" 

"  Allow  us  to  point  out,"  insisted  the  iconoclasts,  "  that 
your  use  of  numbers  is  not  exactly  that  favored  by  Caesar. 
For  instance,  on  your  library,  erected  in  1900,  you  have 
inscribed  MCM,  which,  on  a  public  monument,  would  not 
have  approved  itself  to  Caesar's  contemporaries." 

"  The  arithmetic  of  Romulus  and  Julius  Caesar  is  good 
enough  for  me! " 

It  became  evident  that  the  Osteocephali  were  like  those 
talking  dolls  which,  no  matter  how  hard  they  may  be 
pressed,  can  say  only  "  Mama!  " 

Disappointed  though  they  were,  the  reformers  continued 
their  propaganda,  and  now  and  then  made  a  convert.  A 
good  many  mathematicians  admitted,  in  theory,  the  su- 
periority of  the  Arabic  system,  but  denied  the  possibility 
of  its  application  to  Nescioubian  problems.  Others,  more 
independent,  thought  the  change  might  very  conceivably 
be  advantageous,  but  declared  that  it  should  come  about 
spontaneously,  without  concerted  pressure  from  any  self- 
constituted  body.  The  Arabic  numbers,  apparently,  were 
to  fold  their  tents  and  silently  steal  hi  without  anybody 
noticing  them. 


60  OLD  AND  NEW 

Others  still  conceded  that  the  substitution  might  perhaps 
be  assisted  by  conscious  effort  on  somebody's  part  (not 
their  own),  but  stoutly  maintained  that  it  should  be  effected, 
if  at  all,  very  gradually,  by  the  adoption,  let  us  say,  of  one 
Arabic  figure  hi  a  generation.  The  number  nine,  they 
thought,  might  be  a  good  one  to  begin  with,  as  it  is  written 
in  two  ways,  IX  and  VIIII,  neither  of  them  wholly  con- 
venient in  complex  practical  computation. 

Not  all  the  mathematicians,  however,  were  so  revolu- 
tionary. Some  of  those  who  adorned  the  higher  walks  of 
the  profession  were  convinced  that  the  introduction  of 
Arabic  signs  would  destroy  at  one  blow  the  philosophic 
spirit  of  their  science.  How,  they  asked,  could  one  specu- 
late on  the  fourth  dimension  unless  four  were  written  IV  ? 
What  impression  would  their  beautifully  elaborated  de- 
ductions make,  if  they  were  associated  in  the  student's 
mind  with  a  horrid  Arabic  4  ? 

The  conciliatory  mood  exhibited  by  a  few  influential 
scientists  began  to  alarm  the  conservatives,  especially  the 
manufacturers  of  those  ponderous  tomes  of  numerical  refer- 
ence tables  which  the  Roman  notation  renders  indispen- 
sable. In  self-defense  they  enlisted  the  services  of  an 
eminent  pedagogue,  who  proved,  by  a  series  of  psychological 
experiments,  that  children  can  perform  long  division  more 
rapidly,  more  correctly,  and  with  less  mental  strain,  by 
the  use  of  the  Roman  numbers  than  by  the  use  of  the 
Arabic. 

The  Osteocephali  were  triumphant.  Vainly  did  the  in- 
novators urge  that  the  psychological  experimenters  in 
charge  of  the  laboratories  had  possessed  but  a  misty  idea  of 
the  values  of  the  new  signs,  being  generally  under  the  im- 
pression, for  example,  that  the  figure  7  represented  sixteen. 
Such  details  were  deemed  irrelevant.  It  should  be  ex- 


NUMERIC  REFORM  IN  NESCIOUBIA  6l 

plained  that  in  Nescioubia  the  exponents  of  Psychology 
(and,  above  all,  Experimental  Psychology)  are  looked  upon 
as  the  recipients  of  divine  inspiration.  To  doubt  one  of 
their  utterances  on  any  subject  is  sacrilegious  —  and  danger- 
ous, too,  since  the  occult  powers  bestowed  on  the  Psychol- 
ogist may,  in  popular  belief,  be  used  for  destruction  as  well 
as  for  enlightenment. 

Despite  such  crushing  rebuffs,  the  cause  of  reform  slowly 
went  on  gaining  adherents  —  most  of  them,  to  be  sure,  of 
the  acquiescent  rather  than  the  militant  type.  But  at  this 
point  a  new  obstacle  arose.  "  The  advent  of  Arabic  num- 
bers," declared  the  Osteocephali,  "  would  ruin  the  contin- 
uity of  mathematical  thought."  This  argument  made  a 
profound  impression  on  the  non-mathematical  public.  "If," 
continued  the  newspaper  scientists,  "  we  should  write  four 
with  a  single  Arabic  figure,  we  should  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  four  presented  itself  to  the  Roman  consciousness  as 
five  minus  one,  and  we  should  thus  cut  ourselves  off  from 
all  contact  with  our  ancestors." 

"  But  the  Romans  were  not  the  ancestors  of  most  of  us," 
objected  the  reformers. 

"  That  makes  no  difference.  They  were  somebody's  an- 
cestors. Besides,  they  were  our  predecessors,  anyhow;  and 
they  invented  our  numbers.  How  are  we  to  think  con- 
sistently if  we  throw  away  the  reminder  that  for  them  four 
was  not  four,  but  five  minus  one  ?  " 

"  In  any  event,"  answered  the  radicals,  "  the  Roman 
numerals  would  not  perish  from  the  face  of  the  earth;  and 
the  knowledge  that  four  is  five  minus  one  would  still  be 
accessible  to  persons  desirous  of  that  information." 

"Ah!  but  our  youth  would  lack,  at  the  most  impression- 
able age,  the  ever  present  and  suggestive  record  of  the 
Roman  conception  of  four." 


62  OLD  AND  NEW 

"  But,"  urged  the  innovators,  so  far  recovering  from  their 
consternation  as  to  be  able  to  collect  some  of  their  wits, 
"  the  Romans  did  not  conceive  of  four  as  five  minus  one. 
When  they  wanted  to  express  it  properly,  they  wrote  IIII; 
and  they  regarded  IV  as  a  handy  but  rather  undignified 
abbreviation." 

"  The  advent  of  Arabic  numbers,"  replied  the  Osteo- 
cephali,  "  would  rum  the  continuity  of  mathematical 
thought." 

On  this  point  it  was  generally  granted  that  the  Osteo- 
cephali  had  scored  a  victory.  Following  up  their  advantage, 
they  proceeded  to  display  the  ridiculousness  of  the  new 
mathematics.  The  papers,  from  tune  to  tune,  published 
numbers  written  and  sums  done  (incorrectly  of  course)  in 
Arabic  style;  and  that  part  of  the  public  which  could  rea$ 
neither  notation  roared  with  laughter. 

"  How,"  it  was  asked,  "  could  a  schoolboy  be  expected 
to  keep  a  straight  face  when  he  encountered  eighty-eight 
disguised  as  two  doughnuts,  instead  of  seeing  it  in  its  simple 
and  natural  representation,  LXXXVIII  ?  How  could  any 
one  of  us  preserve  his  respect  for  the  Number  of  the  Beast  " 
—  which  is  held  sacred  by  the  Nescioubians  —  "  if  he  saw 
it  appear,  not  in  its  ancient,  venerable,  and  perspicuous 
image  of  DCLXVI,  but  transformed  into  three  wriggling 
polliwogs  ?  " 

"  You  should  not  balk  at  the  strangeness  of  our  system," 
faltered  the  dismayed  reformers.  "  Everything  new  is 
strange.  You  should  consider  its  simplicity." 

"Simplicity!"  sneered  the  conservatives.  "Have  you 
the  face  to  call  it  simple,  when  it  employs  more  signs  than 
the  old  one  ?  For  the  numbers  up  to  and  including  one 
hundred,  your  method  requires  ten  different  symbols,  o,  i , 
2,  3>  4>  5,  6,  7,  8,  9;  ours,  only  five,  I,  V,  X,  L,  C.  The 


NUMERIC  REFORM  IN  NESCIOUBIA  63 

Roman  notation  is,  then,  just  twice  as  simple  as  the  Arabic, 
as  far  as  these  numbers  are  concerned.  When  it  comes  to 
the  smaller  numbers,  those  under  fifty,  which  one  oftenest 
meets,  the  superiority  of  the  old  way  is  still  greater;  we  use 
three  signs,  you  still  need  ten  —  we  are  therefore  three  and 
a  third  times  as  simple  as  you." 

The  reformers  were  discouraged,  and  no  wonder.  Friends 
of  the  movement  began  to  suggest  compromises.  "  Let  us 
keep  the  Roman  signs,  to  which  the  people  are  so  passion- 
ately attached,"  they  counseled;  "but  let  us  use  them 
with  Arabian  directness."  This  proposition  met  with  con- 
siderable approval.  When,  however,  the  question  arose, 
how  Arabian  directness  was  to  be  infused  into  the  Roman 
numerals,  there  were  more  minds  than  men. 

One  enthusiast,  profoundly  moved  by  the  simplicity 
argument  of  the  Osteocephali,  expressed  his  conviction  that 
only  one  symbol  should  be  employed,  preferably  the  letter 
I,  which  should  be  repeated  as  many  times  as  the  number 
to  be  written  exceeded  unity;  thus,  he  declared,  would  be 
attained  the  maximum  of  practicable  simplification;  al- 
though in  the  abstract  (he  reluctantly  admitted)  a  still 
higher  degree  of  simplicity  might  be  reached  by  using  no 
symbol  at  all. 

Another  philosopher  discovered  that,  inasmuch  as  the 
real  basis  of  Roman  counting  is  duplication,  systematic 
perfection  is  to  be  won  only  by  carrying  out  that  principle 
consistently:  for  instance,  to  express  two  we  double  one, 
to  express  twenty  we  double  ten,  and  so  forth;  we  ought 
therefore  to  write  eight  IVIV,  eighteen  IXIX,  thirty-four 
XVIIXVII.  Against  him  arose  a  third,  affirming  that  the 
foundation  of  Romanism,  as  we  now  practise  it,  is  not  addi- 
tion, but  subtraction;  hence  we  should  write  six,  for  ex- 
ample, not  VI  but  IVX. 


64  OLD  AND  NEW 

A  middle  course  between  these  two  extremes  was  advo- 
cated by  a  Radical-Conservative  member.  "  We  must  dis- 
tinguish," he  said,  "  between  long  and  short  numbers.  Then 
we  can  express  long  numbers  by  subtraction,  short  numbers 
by  addition.  Eight,  which  is  short,  we  may  continue  to 
write  VIII;  but  eighty-eight,  which  is  long,  we  shall  write 
XIIC." 

When  asked  where  he  would  draw  the  line  between  short 
and  long,  he  replied  that,  being  a  strictly  practical  man,  he 
left  these  details  to  the  mathematical  theorists. 

Such  was  the  situation  last  winter.  Because  of  recent 
storms,  I  have  been  for  several  weeks  without  news  from 
Nescioubia.  According  to  the  latest  advices,  the  reformers 
were  full  of  good  hope.  But  the  Nescioubians  were  still 
using  the  Roman  numerals. 


IS  MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING 
A  FAILURE?1 

WE  traffickers  in  living  tongues  are  admirable  exponents  of 
that  attitude  of  mind  which  some  sociologists  call  "  the 
noble  discontent."  Discontented  we  all  are;  if  not  with 
our  own  ministrations,  at  least  with  the  efforts  of  our  fel- 
lows, and  especially  with  the  operations  of  those  instructors 
who  immediately  precede  us.  If  we  be  high  school  teachers, 
let  us  recall  what  we  said,  at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  about 
the  modest  attempts  made  to  impart  a  little  German  to  our 
pupils  in  the  grammar  school:  did  we  not  express  a  prefer- 
ence for  children  who  had  not  tried  to  study  a  foreign  lan- 
guage in  the  grades  at  all,  devoutly  wishing  that  our  charges 
had  spent  their  extra  time  on  English  grammar  ?  What 
does  the  college  instructor  remark,  when  he  first  sizes  up  the 
hopeful  product  that  comes  to  him  from  the  high  school  ? 
Does  he  not  invariably  declare  that  the  years  spent  on 
French  in  the  preparatory  school  have  been  worse  than 
wasted,  and  that  his  best  students  are  those  who  never 
opened  a  French  book  before  ?  As  to  the  observations  of 
collaborators  in  the  same  institution,  each  on  the  peda- 
gogical ability  of  his  colleague  in  the  next  grade  below, 
they  are  better  forgotten  than  remembered.  And  the  sad- 
dest part  of  it  is  —  making  allowance  for  the  exaggeration 

1  An  address  before  the  Joint  Session  of  the  Classical  and  Modern 
Language  Conferences  of  the  Michigan  Schoolmasters'  Club  at  Ann  Arbor, 
Mich.,  March  28, 1907  —  thirteen  years  ago. 

6s 


66  OLD  AND  NEW 

due  to  recurrent  disappointment  and  discouragement  —  al- 
lowing, too,  for  the  different  standards  of  successive  teachers, 
each  of  whom  has  his  peculiar  antipathies  among  the 
countless  possible  kinds  of  failure  —  the  saddest  part  of  it 
is  that  these  uncomplimentary  estimates  are,  for  the  most 
part,  substantially  correct.  The  amount  of  positive,  accu- 
rate knowledge  carried  from  one  grade  to  another  seems,  in 
proportion  to  the  quantity  of  ignorance  and  misapprehen- 
sion, insignificant. 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  all  this  is  true  of  other  subjects  as 
well.  The  teachers  of  English  composition,  history,  music, 
drawing  make  the  same  lament;  and  the  only  reason  why 
anatomy,  hygiene,  physiography,  meteorology,  astronomy, 
botany,  and  zoology  do  not  give  rise  to  a  like  complaint  is 
that  these  topics  are  disposed  of  in  a  single  year.  Both 
foreign  and  domestic  critics  affirm  that  the  American  school- 
boy shows  a  general  deficiency  of  from  three  to  five  years, 
as  compared  with  the  French  or  German  child  of  the  same 
age.  Are  not  his  shortcomings  in  modern  languages  merely 
one  manifestation  of  a  national  incompetency  in  matters 
of  education  ? 

True  it  undoubtedly  is  that  our  boys  and  girls  are,  on  the 
average,  some  four  years  behind  those  of  France  and  Ger- 
many in  common  book-learning.  We  shall  perhaps  be  able 
to  pursue  our  subject  with  a  clearer  understanding  if  we 
turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  consider  the  origin  of  this  back- 
wardness. The  blame  has  sometimes  been  put,  and  with 
some  justice,  upon  our  migratory  habits  and  upon  the  het- 
erogeneous character  of  our  population.  But  there  are 
other  and  more  fundamental  causes:  three,  especially,  call 
for  more  extended  examination. 

The  most  obvious  source  of  the  transatlantic  superiority 
is  the  Spartan  discipline  maintained  in  the  foreign  schools, 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  67 

a  discipline  which  forces  pupils  through  a  curriculum  so 
crowded  that  neither  American  scholars  nor  American 
parents  would  submit  to  it  for  a  year.  The  school  child 
in  Europe  is  hi  a  state  of  bondage:  from  the  age  of  six  to 
eighteen  he  scarcely  knows  any  occupation  but  study;  his 
whole  life  centers  in  school,  while,  as  we  all  know,  for  the 
American  youth  of  that  age  school  is  merely  one  element 
in  a  highly  variegated  existence.  No  doubt  we  might  ad- 
vantageously imitate  our  neighbors  by  insisting  on  more 
expert  school  management,  by  strengthening  somewhat 
our  grip  upon  our  students,  and  above  all  by  making  the 
award  of  diplomas  depend  in  some  degree  on  the  successful 
performance  of  school  duties.  In  a  community  where  public 
instruction  is  directed  by  a  committee  chosen  by  parents, 
who  hi  turn  are  controlled  by  their  children,  we  have  a  kind 
of  indirect  educational  self-government  which  makes  strict 
standards  impossible.  Fortunately  there  are  some  Ameri- 
can cities  to  which  this  criticism  no  longer  applies;  but 
those  towns  are  few  indeed  in  which  the  general  administra- 
tion is  in  the  hands  of  the  really  competent.  If,  however,  it 
came  to  an  absolute  choice  between  our  happy-go-lucky 
method  —  with  the  abundant  opportunity  it  affords  our 
children  for  wholesome  exercise,  play,  spontaneity,  and 
varied  experience  —  and  the  scholastic  sweat-shop  of  some 
Europeans  —  with  its  renunciation  of  so  much  that  makes 
childhood  worth  living  —  we  might  still  prefer  our  back- 
wardness to  a  proficiency  bought  at  such  a  price. 

Another  reason  for  the  quicker  progress  of  the  foreign 
pupil  is  the  greater  inducement  offered  him  to  study.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  our  children  are  as  intelligent  as  those  of 
other  nations.  In  organizing  a  concert,  a  dramatic  per- 
formance, a  magazine  —  in  fact,  in  any  task  that  does  not 
fall  within  the  scope  of  school  routine,  the  young  American 


68  OLD  AND  NEW 

is  the  equal  of  any  boy  on  earth;  in  resourcefulness  and 
enterprise  it  would  be  hard  to  match  him.  Only  when  he 
turns  to  prescribed  study  does  he  show  himself  a  drone. 
And  why  ?  Because  he  sees  nothing  to  be  gained  by  appli- 
cation. Under  our  ordinary  administration  nothing  but 
death  can  prevent  him  from  getting  his  diploma;  and  the 
promises  of  the  joy  of  superior  enlightenment,  of  enhanced 
civic  usefulness,  of  higher  social  prestige  are  to  him  not 
only  vague  and  unsubstantial,  but  contrary  to  everyday 
experience.  Who  are  the  men  that  tower  above  their  fel- 
lows in  the  columns  of  the  newspapers  ?  They  are  for  the 
most  part  the  untutored  geniuses  whose  education  went 
little  if  at  all  beyond  the  red  schoolhouse.  All  the  talk 
about  the  advantages  of  learning  is,  like  the  stories  of  storks 
and  Santa  Claus,  only  a  part  of  the  well-meaning  fictiqn 
with  which  grown-up  folks  try  to  blind  their  offspring  to 
the  realities  of  life.  Our  boy  good-naturedly  studies  a  little, 
to  oblige  his  parents  and  teachers;  but  as  to  really  exerting 
himself,  he  very  seldom  thinks  that  worth  while.  Not  so 
the  schoolboy  in  the  crowded  Old  World.  He  knows  only 
too  well  the  value  of  scholarship;  he  foresees  the  cruel  com- 
petition, the  fierce  struggle  for  existence,  that  await  him; 
and  he  has  reason  to  strain  every  nerve  to  attain  that  de- 
gree of  proficiency  which  may  assure  him  a  modest  liveli- 
hood in  the  career  that  fate  has  marked  out  for  him.  As 
America  fills  up,  as  the  opportunities  for  money-making 
without  capital  decrease,  as  the  requirements  in  the  per- 
formance of  all  labor  advance,  the  value,  the  necessity  of 
special  training  and  of  general  discipline  will  become  more 
and  more  apparent;  and  some  day  the  American  boy's 
outlook  upon  the  future  may  be  as  clear  and  calculating  as 
that  of  his  European  brother.  May  that  day  be  slow  to 
come! 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  69 

The  third  and  least  important  cause,  which  is  a  direct 
outcome  of  the  pitiless  competition  just  mentioned,  is  the 
better  equipment  of  the  teacher  in  France  and  Germany. 
The  qualifications  demanded  of  this  unfortunate  being 
would  be  likely  to  debar  99  per  cent  of  the  secondary  school 
instructors  in  America.  But  are  all  these  requirements 
really  conducive  to  the  welfare  of  the  pupils  ?  No,  in  large 
measure  their  only  effect  is  to  reduce  the  host  of  candidates. 
A  long  training  in  Romance  philology,  with  original  investi- 
gation of  some  topic  in  Old  French  or  Provencal,  does  not 
perceptibly  increase  the  efficiency  of  a  teacher  of  elemen- 
tary French,  nor  is  it  necessary  even  for  an  adequate  presen- 
tation of  modern  French  literature.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
absolute  requirement  of  a  thorough  practical  knowledge  — 
obtained  in  part  by  at  least  a  year's  residence  abroad  —  of 
the  language  to  be  taught  is  one  that  we  shall  do  well 
gradually  to  adopt.  There  is  nothing  more  essential  to  the 
teacher  than  the  confidence  that  springs  from  complete 
mastery  of  his  subject.  When  his  chief  preoccupation  in 
the  classroom  is  not  to  impart  what  he  knows,  but  to  con- 
ceal what  he  does  not  know,  the  value  of  his  labor  is  ques- 
tionable. A  very  gratifying  improvement  in  this  respect 
has  occurred  in  American  schools  in  the  last  quarter  of  a 
century;  in  another  twenty-five  years,  at  the  same  rate  of 
progress,  the  standard  for  high  school  teachers  of  foreign 
languages  in  our  principal  cities  will  not  be  inferior,  in  the 
really  important  things,  to  that  maintained  in  France  and 
Germany.  And  this  increased  equipment  need  not  be  ac- 
companied by  any  diminution  of  human  sympathy. 

In  addition  to  these  three  very  patent  reasons  for  the 
comparatively  slow  advance  of  our  children,  there  is  a  fourth 
which  has  not  been  set  forth  until  recently,  and  even  now 
does  not  receive  the  consideration  it  deserves.  The  cUffi- 


70  OLD  AND  NEW 

culties  of  English  spelling  are  in  themselves  enough  to 
account  for  the  whole  deficiency  under  discussion.  They 
have  been,  during  the  past  year  or  two,  so  often  and  so  well 
set  before  the  public  that  there  is  no  need  of  expatiating  on 
the  subject  now.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  our 
children  spend  two  or  three  years  in  learning  —  or  rather 
in  trying  to  learn  —  to  spell.  For  French  and  especially 
for  German  children  this  process  is  much  easier,  owing  to 
the  more  logical  character  of  the  orthography;  in  actual 
time  spent,  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  English  and  American 
pupils  labor  under  a  handicap  of  at  least  a  year.  But  there 
is  a  disadvantage  worse  even  than  the  loss  of  time  —  a 
drawback  so  serious  as  to  impair  the  efficiency  of  all  school 
work.  It  has  been  admirably  stated  by  an  Associate  City 

Superintendent  of  Schools  in  New  York: 

• 

Next  to  learning  by  imitation,  the  child  must  be  taught  to  learn  by 
association  and  analogy.  He  develops  strength  of  mind  by  the  exer- 
cise of  judgment.  He  must  reason  from  known  facts  in  the  solution 
of  his  little  problems.  If  he  conies  to  a  new  printed  word  and  halts, 
the  teacher  asks  him  to  think  of  the  oral  word  for  which  it  stands. 
Having  learned  that  puff  and  muff  stand  for  well-known  oral  words, 
he  is  staggered  at  rough  and  enough,  frequently  used  in  conversation. 
Having  learned  that  these  characters  stand  for  well-known  spoken 
words  which  he  wrote  ruff  and  enuff  from  his  knowledge  of  puff  and 
muff,  he  is  again  confused  when  the  teacher  tells  him  that  dough  is  the 
spelling  of  the  well-known  word  his  mother  uses  when  speaking  about 
bread-making,  and  that  cough  stands  for  the  malady  so  prevalent  in 
the  nursery  during  winter  time. 

The  stage  of  the  child's  tuition  during  which  all  the  similar  incon- 
gruities of  our  spelling  must  be  mastered,  occupies  many  years  of 
school  life,  and  the  process  has  well-nigh  produced  a  disbelief  in  rea- 
son as  a  means  of  learning,  and  a  total  lack  of  confidence  in  inference. 
The  result  of  falling  into  absurd  and  ridiculous  situations  through  the 
exercise  of  his  judgment,  appears  in  a  hesitancy  or  fear  of  drawing 
any  inferences  upon  data  relating  to  other  fields  of  knowledge.  The 
child  has  lost  faith  in  his  own  conclusions  with  respect  to  problems 
in  arithmetic,  biology,  geography,  history,  etc.  To  what  extent  of 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  71 

subject-matter  and  time  the  school  child  has  suffered  irreparable  loss, 
by  failure  to  acquire  confidence  in  the  exercise  of  his  judgment  as  a 
result  of  his  early  stultification  during  the  process  of  learning  to  master 
the  spelling  of  common  words,  may  never  be  determined. 

When  we  consider  these  four  drawbacks  —  the  lack  of 
sufficient  authority  and  competence  on  the  part  of  the 
school  management,  the  absence  of  any  strong  incentive 
to  study,  the  inadequate  training  of  teachers,  and  the  stul- 
tifying effect  of  our  eccentric  spelling  —  far  from  wonder- 
ing at  the  backwardness  of  our  boys  and  girls,  we  may  feel 
a  justifiable  pride  that  they  are  no  farther  behind,  and  we 
may  conclude  that  both  they  and  their  instructors  must  be 
made  of  superior  stuff  to  achieve  anything  at  all.  It  is 
therefore  apparent  that  a  comparison  of  the  results  ob- 
tained in  any  one  field  of  knowledge  in  our  country  should 
not,  in  fairness,  be  made  with  the  work  done  in  that  same 
line  abroad,  but  rather  with  the  product  in  other  branches 
at  home;  and  a  just  estimate  of  the  value  of  our  mod- 
ern language  teaching  can  be  reached  only  by  setting  it 
beside  the  instruction  given  in  other  departments  here  in 
America. 

Such  a  comparison  can  never  be  made  with  objective 
exactness:  it  must  express  itself  in  terms  of  individual 
opinion  based  on  observation.  And  inasmuch  as  one's 
judgment  derives  its  value  largely  from  the  scope  of  the 
investigation  on  which  it  is  founded,  it  may  not  be  inex- 
pedient to  set  forth  the  personal  views  of  one  who  has  had 
opportunities  to  study  the  question  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  college  instructor  in  elementary  French  and  German, 
from  the  comprehensive  experience  of  a  director  of  all  the 
modern  language  instruction  in  the  public  schools  of  a 
large  city,  and  finally  in  the  capacity  of  chairman  of  the 
Romance  department  in  a  great  university.  In  school  and 


72  OLD  AND  NEW  . 

college  alike  one  significant  fact  constantly  obtrudes  itself 
—  namely,  that  the  previously  mentioned  denial  of  the 
worth  of  all  foregoing  instruction  in  a  subject,  constantly 
on  the  lips  of  modern  language  teachers,  is  seldom  or 
never  heard  from  the  mouth  of  an  instructor  in  classics  or 
mathematics.  In  these  older  topics  one  often  hears,  to  be 
sure,  complaint  and  impatient  criticism;  but  only  in  very 
exceptional  cases  does  the  work  done  under  a  predecessor 
appear  wholly  fruitless.  The  steps  may  be  slow,  but  they 
are  sure;  at  each  promotion  the  scholar  has  added  a  defi- 
nite acquisition  to  his  sum  of  knowledge.  In  the  other  new 
subjects,  however  —  such  as  "  science,"  history,  and  Eng- 
lish composition  —  the  efforts  seem,  judging  from  such 
comments  as  one  may  gather  in  the  course  of  years,  to  be 
fully  as  futile  as  in  French  and  German.  An  eminent  pro- 
fessor in  a  scientific  school  has  been  heard  to  declare  that 
he  would  rather  have,  as  advanced  students  of  applied 
science,  men  who  had  devoted  themselves  to  Latin  than 
those  who  had  spent  their  time  on  scientific  studies;  and 
his  voice  is  one  of  many.  College  instructors  in  English 
composition  are  sometimes  heard  to  regret  that  their  pupils 
ever  tried  to  write  English  at  school.  It  appears  to  be  the 
unanimous  opinion  of  college  professors  of  modern  lan- 
guages that  their  best  pupils  are  those  whose  school  years 
were  given  mostly  to  Greek  and  Latin,  while  their  poorest 
are  those  in  whose  previous  curriculum  French  or  German 
or  "  science  "  was  the  principal  factor.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  boy  from  a  good  classical  school  finds  that  his  college 
Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics  are  the  natural  continua- 
tion of  what  he  has  already  acquired;  and  his  instructor, 
with  no  great  upsetting  or  reviewing,  simply  takes  him  on 
from  the  point  he  has  reached  under  the  guidance  of  his 
former  teacher. 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  73 

It  would  seem,  then,  if  our  data  and  inferences  are  cor- 
rect, that  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics  are  so  taught  as 
to  allow  but  little  waste  in  the  passage  from  one  teacher  to 
another,  while  in  other  subjects  the  apparent  or  real  loss 
is  most  discouraging.  Furthermore,  school  study  of  the 
classics  furnishes  not  only  an  excellent  basis  for  further 
work  along  the  same  line,  but  also  the  best  foundation  for 
studies  of  a  different  character;  while  modern  language 
courses,  in  common  with  "  science  "  and  some  other  topics, 
far  from  fitting  a  pupil  to  take  up  new  branches  of  study, 
do  not  adequately  prepare  him  to  continue  what  he  has 
begun.  It  is  likely  enough  that  French  and  German,  as 
taught  today,  are  more  effective  than  most  of  the  other 
new  studies,  but  they  are  still  vastly  inferior  to  the  classics. 
And  inasmuch  as  the  modern  tongues  to  a  considerable 
extent  have  replaced  Greek  and  Latin  in  the  secondary 
school  curriculum  and  in  the  ordinary  college  training,  we 
cannot  regard  any  instruction  in  them  as  satisfactory  which 
does  not  produce  results  comparable  to  those  derived  from 
the  study  of  the  old  humanities. 

Is  the  inferiority  of  the  modern  to  the  ancient  languages, 
as  a  means  of  mental  discipline,  inherent  in  these  tongues, 
or  does  it  arise  from  causes  that  can  be  overcome  ?  A 
priori  it  is  not  obvious  why  German,  for  instance,  should 
not  furnish  nearly  as  good  an  instrument  for  training  the 
attention,  the  reason,  and  the  memory,  as  Latin.  More- 
over, long-continued  search  does  reveal  some  exceptional 
instances  in  which  French  and  German  have  in  fact  been 
made  to  bear  most  gratifying  fruit.  For  it  must  be  under- 
stood that  in  all  that  has  preceded  we  have  been  consider- 
ing the  general  average,  and  not  the  unusual  specific  case. 
Until  we  have,  then,  conclusive  evidence  to  the  contrary, 
we  may  proceed  on  the  assumption  that  the  modern  Ian- 


74  OLD  AND  NEW 

guages  can  be  used  to  good  purpose  in  education.  What 
we  need  to  do  first  of  all  is  to  discover  the  obstacles  that 
have  hitherto  prevented  success. 

From  time  immemorial  until  our  own  generation  the 
fundamental  discipline  of  educated  men  throughout  the 
civilized  world  has  been  derived  from  Latin  and  Greek, 
with  more  or  less  admixture  of  mathematics.  The  great 
writers,  the  imposing  figures  in  history,  the  mighty  scholars 
of  every  type  have  formed  their  intelligence  on  the  classics; 
all  that  we  revere  in  the  intellectual  past  derives  from  that 
abundant  source.  The  majestic  tradition  of  classic  study 
gives  to  the  old  humanities  a  dignity  that  newer  branches 
of  learning  can  never  attain,  unless  it  be  after  many  cen- 
turies of  like  achievement.  In  the  far-distant  future  we 
may  picture  a  time  when  French  and  German  will  be  uv 
vested  with  the  glory  of  ancient  and  perennial  success;  but 
that  thought  affords  us  no  present  help,  save  the  gift  of  an 
ideal  toward  which  our  efforts  may  converge,  a  faith  that 
may  brighten  the  hours  of  discouragement.  Under  the  con- 
ditions that  face  us  today  we  cannot  hope  that  either  pupils 
or  teachers  will  approach  our  modern  tongues  in  a  spirit  of 
reverence  comparable  to  that  which  properly  hallows  the 
study  of  Greek  and  Latin.  We  must  respect  our  subjects; 
we  must,  if  we  can,  make  our  students  respect  them; 
but  that  respect  will  at  best  fall  far  short  of  veneration. 
Hitherto  the  living  languages  have  not  enjoyed  even  the 
moderate  consideration  that  justly  belongs  to  them;  and 
the  slight  esteem  in  which  they  have  been  held  is  due 
mainly  to  the  short-sighted  policy  of  pedagogues  who  have 
too  often  sacrificed  the  substantial  to  the  showy,  the  facile, 
and  the  frivolous.  If  we  wish  others  to  take  us  seriously, 
if  our  pupils  are  to  devote  sober  attention  to  our  instruc- 
tion, we  must  set  a  high  standard  for  ourselves.  No  magis- 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  75 

terial  airs  will  help  us,  no  lectures  or  upbraidings:  what  we 
need  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  thorough  and  ever-increasing 
knowledge  of  the  matter  we  are  to  teach,  and,  secondly,  a 
wise  earnestness  that  is  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  the 
real  intellectual  development  of  our  scholars. 

On  this  score,  then  —  the  honor  in  which  our  depart- 
ment of  learning  is  held  —  we  cannot,  for  long  ages,  equal 
the  classics;  but  we  can  distinctly  improve  our  present 
position.  And  we  have  an  advantage  which,  if  rightly  used, 
may  offset  the  lack  of  time-sanctioned  regard:  I  mean  the 
attractiveness  born  of  actuality.  If  German,  French,  and 
Spanish  cannot  be  revered,  let  them  benefit  by  that  affec- 
tion which  the  youthful  mind  instinctively  bestows  on  all 
that  is  alive.  Let  the  learner  realize  that  in  studying  a 
foreign  tongue  he  is  penetrating  the  life,  the  thought,  the 
feeling  of  real  people  —  people  who  are  like  himself  in  most 
things  but  interestingly  divergent  in  others.  Let  him  be 
led  to  compare  the  effects  of  different  material  environ- 
ment, dissimilar  national  traditions,  contrary  ideas  of 
beauty,  various  methods  of  utilizing  words  for  the  expres- 
sion of  what  is  in  the  mind.  Nothing  is  more  fascinating 
than  such  comparisons  and  contrasts,  affording  as  they  do 
ever  longer  and  deeper  glimpses  into  a  world  so  near  yet 
so  remote  from  our  ken.  Few  things,  on  the  other  hand, 
can  be  made  more  tiresome,  if  imparted  in  formal  lectures, 
with  an  appalling  apparatus  of  specimens,  charts,  and  wall 
pictures  of  cheap  and  hideous  design.  The  pupil  must  be 
aroused  to  see  things  for  himself;  his  curiosity  must  be 
awakened  by  an  incidental  explanation,  a  casual  remark,  a 
timely  anecdote.  Tact,  insight,  and  overflowing  fullness  of 
information  must  be  the  teacher's  stock  in  trade.  Even  a 
comparison  of  grammatical  forms  and  constructions  can  be 
made  of  absorbing  interest,  if  not  carried  too  far:  a  revela- 


76  OLD  AND  NEW 

tion  of  the  manifold  ways  in  which  human  ingenuity  uses 
speech,  combined  with  a  discussion  of  the  relative  merits 
of  a  foreign  and  a  corresponding  English  idiom  or  inflection, 
may  impress  the  facts  indelibly  on  the  hearer's  memory', 
while  kindling  his  desire  for  further  knowledge.  Such  study 
has  the  additional  advantage  of  imparting  to  the  child  an 
understanding  of  the  real  structure  of  English,  of  which  he 
is  likely,  otherwise,  to  remain  hi  eternal  ignorance.  More- 
over, in  languages  that  offer  such  a  wide  range  of  choice, 
the  reading  can  be  so  selected  that  the  subject-matter  itself 
shall  be  an  inducement  to  continued  effort.  Short  stories 
of  adventure,  devoid  of  mawkish  sentimentality,  are  most 
pleasing  to  the  young  beginner.  Longer  and  more  diversi- 
fied works  attract  the  student  who  is  older  or  more  ad- 
vanced. Poetry,  judiciously  administered,  may  serve  tp 
train  the  ear,  to  cultivate  the  sense  of  beauty,  to  reveal 
the  latent  harmonies  of  language;  and  verse  of  the  right 
kind,  rightly  presented,  will  appeal  to  the  average  girl  or 
boy.  The  pieces  chosen  should  not  be  too  childish;  chil- 
dren relish  literature,  especially  poetry,  that  is  a  little  above 
them,  but  look  down  with  speechless  scorn  on  that  which 
lies  in  the  least  beneath  their  level.  Furthermore,  teachers 
should  not  forget  that  poetry  is  a  kind  of  music;  it  is  in- 
tended not  merely  for  the  mind,  but  for  the  hearing.  The 
reason  why  verse,  particularly  French  verse,  is  so  little  and 
in  general  so  unsuccessfully  used  in  the  schoolroom  is  that 
very  few  instructors  know  how  to  read  it.  The  real  rhythm, 
the  proper  intonation  can  be  acquired  only  by  close  and 
patient  imitation  of  a  native  elocutionist.  The  teacher  who 
does  not  possess  the  art  does  well,  until  he  masters  it,  to 
avoid  the  Castalian  spring;  and  he  who  does  possess  it 
should  habitually  do  the  "  reading  aloud  "  himself,  instead 
of  compelling  his  pupils  to  murder  the  verse.  Only  after 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  77 

the  learner  has  heard  the  poem  many  times  should  he  be 
allowed  to  attempt  it. 

One  reason  why  the  living  tongues  are  relegated  to  a 
lower  plane  than  Greek  and  Latin  is  that  people  —  includ- 
ing scholars  and  teachers  —  harbor  a  totally  false  concep- 
tion of  their  difficulty.  Our  modern  languages  are  fully  as 
hard  as  the  ancient,  and  require  to  be  studied  just  as  in- 
dustriously. I  do  not  believe  there  is  or  ever  was  a  lan- 
guage more  difficult  to  acquire  than  French;  most  of  us 
can  name  worthy  persons  who  have  been  assiduously  strug- 
gling with  it  from  childhood  to  mature  age,  and  do  not 
know  it  now:  yet  it  is  treated  as  something  that  anyone 
can  pick  up  offhand  When  I  thus  compare  the  old  and 
the  new  tongues,  I  have  in  mind,  of  course,  the  degree  and 
kind  of  attainment  that  is  expected  in  each.  If  we  were  as 
careful  of  Latin  pronunciation  as  we  try  to  be  of  French,  if 
we  compelled  our  pupils  to  talk  Greek,  as  we  labor  to  make 
them  speak  German,  the  comparison  might  result  differ- 
ently; but  even  then  the  balance,  in  my  opinion,  would 
be  not  far  from  even.  The  obstacles  to  proficiency  in  the 
classics  are  more  apparent  than  real,  and  they  present 
themselves  most  conspicuously  at  the  outset.  The  inflec- 
tions seem  formidable,  but,  if  attacked  at  the  age  when 
memory  is  good,  are  soon  mastered;  and  the  very  abun- 
dance of  forms,  with  definite  rules  for  the  use  of  each,  re- 
moves in  great  measure  the  endless  and  desperately  intricate 
syntactical  problems  that  beset  the  student  of  French.  The 
copiousness  of  Latin  and  Greek  grammar,  for  a  scholar  who 
really  learns  the  language,  is  an  advantage  rather  than  a 
drawback:  hi  a  book  of  moderate  compass  he  has  all  that 
he  needs  to  know,  every  emergency  is  foreseen,  every  con- 
struction has  its  formula;  a  French  grammar  of  equal  size 
makes  no  provision  for  three-quarters  of  the  puzzles  that  an 


78  OLD  AND  NEW 

ordinary  student  encounters.  Aside  from  the  difference  in 
the  inherent  difficulty  of  languages,  there  is  a  great  diver- 
gence in  the  adequacy  of  textbooks.  The  classics  have  been 
studied  so  long  and  so  well,  and  the  field  they  cover  is  so 
definite  and  so  restricted,  that  they  are  furnished  with  an 
equipment  which  the  modern  tongues  can  probably  never 
rival.  The  completeness,  the  accuracy  of  a  Latin  lexicon 
or  a  Lathi  grammar  may  well  fill  us  with  envy.  When  I 
look  up  a  strange  word  in  a  Latin  dictionary,  I  do  so  with 
the  firm  belief  that  I  shall  find  it,  and  my  faith  is  nearly 
always  rewarded;  but  when  I  come  upon  an  unknown  term 
in  French,  I  turn  to  Littre  or  the  Dictionnaire  General  with 
a  disheartening  apprehension  that  it  will  not  be  there,  and 
my  foreboding  is  usually  justified.  The  same  thing  is  true 
of  grammars  and  of  textbooks  generally.  The  task  of  the 
Greek  or  Latin  teacher,  compared  to  ours,  is  an  easy  one, 
and  so  is  that  of  the  pupil,  if  the  learning  of  a  given  defi- 
nite amount  of  Latin  be  compared  with  the  acquisition  of 
the  same  amount  of  French.  It  is  an  incalculable  advan- 
tage to  a  language  to  appear  harder  than  it  is:  both  scholar 
and  instructor  approach  the  study  seriously,  school  boards 
allow  adequate  provision  of  time  and  books,  parents  are 
contented  to  have  their  children  work  hard,  and  the  satis- 
faction of  achievement  is  multiplied  fourfold.  French  stag- 
gers under  the  fearful  burden  of  apparent  easiness.  The 
alphabet  is  identical  with  ours,  although  the  letters  all  stand 
for  different  sounds;  a  large  part  of  the  vocabulary  is  spelled 
like  English,  although  the  meaning  of  the  words  is  hardly 
ever  exactly  the  same.  The  superficial  resemblances  im- 
press the  learner;  the  fundamental  distinctions  he  ignores. 
It  takes  him  four  years  or  so  —  if  he  keeps  on  that  long  — 
to  convince  himself  that  French  really  demands  applica- 
tion, and  then  he  awakens  to  the  fact  that  he  has  not  been 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  79 

learning  the  language  at  all.  What  he  has  been  learning 
is  a  sort  of  pidjin  English  made  up  of  English  substitutes 
for  French  sounds  and  English  transliterations  of  French 
words,  arranged  in  such  fashion  as  to  signify  nothing  in 
any  tongue  that  man  ever  spoke.  In  fact,  he  has  never 
expected  his  text  to  mean  anything,  French  being,  in  his 
conception,  a  kind  of  speech  in  which  people  talk  a  great 
deal  without  ever  saying  anything  in  particular.  Let  us 
consider  an  ordinary  university  class  in  French  literature, 
made  up  of  students  of  average  ability,  who  have  had,  for 
the  most  part,  some  four  years  of  French,  usually  three  at 
school  and  one  in  college :  it  is  safe  to  say  that  of  these  boys, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  not  more  than  one  in  ten  can 
read  a  page  of  easy  French  understandingly.  They  think 
they  understand  it,  while  in  reality  they  miss  the  point  of 
nearly  every  significant  sentence  they  read.  When  such 
pupils  are  once  awakened  from  their  delusion,  if  they  are 
not  too  discouraged  to  continue  at  all,  they  are  ready  to 
make  good  progress,  having  realized  at  last  that  their  slip- 
shod ways  have  led  to  naught.  Unhappily  few  reach  the 
Socratic  stage  of  knowing  that  they  know  nothing;  and 
parents  and  school  authorities  are  not  likely  to  suspect  the 
truth.  German  has  the  good  fortune  to  seem  rather  hard, 
though  not  so  hard  as  Greek  and  Latin:  it  has  a  queer- 
looking  alphabet,  and  the  beginner  is  obliged  to  memorize 
a  good  many  declensions.  The  result  is  that  German,  in 
general,  is  much  better  studied  and  better  taught,  in 
secondary  schools,  than  French,  and  a  more  substantial 
knowledge  is  attained.  Anyone  who  has  given  elemen- 
tary instruction,  in  school  and  college,  in  both  these  lan- 
guages, can  testify  that  German  is  twice  as  satisfactory  to 
teach  as  French,  the  reason  being,  no  doubt,  that  the  former 
language  looks  a  great  deal  harder  while  it  is  in  reality 


80  OLD  AND  NEW 

considerably  easier.  What  are  we  to  do  about  it  ?  We 
can  hardly  erect  scarecrows  along  the  path  of  the  French 
pupil.  We  can,  however,  refrain  from  distorting  the  truth; 
we  can  insist  upon  accuracy  from  the  start,  in  pronuncia- 
tion, in  comprehension,  in  inflection,  in  construction;  we 
can  refuse  to  be  satisfied  with  approximations  and  mean- 
ingless guesses.  The  whole  tendency  of  French  instruction 
has  been  to  disguise  its  difficulty;  to  represent  the  subject 
as  one  in  which  serious  exertion  is  unnecessary  —  a  thing 
that  can  be  caught  by  intuition;  to  grade  the  progress  and 
conceal  the  obstacles  so  adroitly  that  the  learner  shall  never 
be  aware  of  them.  The  object  of  this  disingenuous  policy 
has  no  doubt  been  to  induce  children  to  study  French;  its 
effect  has  been  the  opposite,  for  while  it  may  often  have  led 
pupils  to  elect  French  as  a  part  of  their  program,  it  has 
uniformly  deterred  them  from  studying  it. 

In  the  case  of  a  branch  of  scholarship  so  recently  de- 
veloped it  is  natural  that  there  should  be  no  underlying 
uniformity  of  purpose;  and  that,  presumably,  is  why 
our  efforts  are  so  scattering,  so  unfocused.  If  we  had  a 
clear  conception  of  what  we  are  teaching  a  language  for, 
we  should  be  more  likely  to  concentrate  our  forces  and  thus 
avoid  the  waste  incident  to  unsystematic  endeavor.  Why, 
hi  fact,  is  it  worth  while  to  teach  or  to  study  French  or 
German  ?  How  many  of  us  can  answer  that  question  ? 
How  many  have  so  much  as  asked  it  ?  The  first  and  most 
obvious  answer,  the  one  given  in  three  cases  out  of  four,  is 
that  we  teach  French  and  German  hi  order  that  our  pupils 
may  know  these  languages,  because  it  is  a  pleasant  and 
useful  thing  to  know  them.  And  if  we  inquire  further  in 
what  this  pleasure  and  this  utility  consist,  either  we  receive 
no  response  at  all  or  we  are  told  that  it  is  delightful  to  con- 
verse with  foreigners  and  profitable  to  be  able  to  conduct 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  8 1 

foreign  business  correspondence.  By  this  time  it  must  be 
obvious  that  we  are  on  the  wrong  tack.  How  many  of  our 
pupils,  unless  they  have  enjoyed  exceptional  advantages, 
can  speak  French  to  a  Frenchman  with  anything  like  pleas- 
ure to  either  party  ?  How  many  ever  secure  positions  as 
foreign  business  correspondents  through  the  training  that 
we  give  them  ?  No:  if  this  is  our  object,  we  must  confess 
that  our  instruction  is  a  gigantic  failure.  And  even  if  we 
succeeded,  the  end  attained  would  be  insignificant  in  pro- 
portion to  the  expenditure  of  time  and  labor.  Only  a  tiny 
fraction  of  those  who  study  French  will  ever  go  abroad  or 
have  frequent  opportunity  to  display  their  skill  at  home; 
and  if  all  those  who  study  German  are  to  become  commer- 
cial correspondents,  that  profession  will  have  to  expand  a 
thousandfold.  It  is  just  such  frivolous  and  inane  state- 
ments as  those  cited,  and  the  thoughtlessness  from  which 
they  spring,  that  have  prevented  our  subjects  from  win- 
ning the  esteem  of  the  community.  If  our  branch  of  learning 
has  no  better  claim  to  consideration,  it  is  not  worthy  of  a 
place  in  any  public  school  curriculum. 

Let  us  look  at  the  matter  from  another  side.  The  modern 
tongues  have  been  introduced  into  schools  and  colleges 
mainly  as  a  partial  or  total  substitute  for  the  classics.  Now, 
as  I  have  said  before,  it  is  through  the  classics  that  the  man 
of  European  stock,  from  ancient  times  almost  until  our  own 
day,  has  received  his  mental  discipline:  it  is  they  that  have 
taught  him  how  to  observe,  how  to  discriminate,  how  to 
reason,  how  to  remember;  they  have  afforded  practice  in 
analysis  and  synthesis;  they  have  cultivated  the  taste  and 
broadened  the  horizon.  It  is  they  that  have  given  man  the 
intellectual  power  to  cope  with  any  problem  that  may  con- 
front him;  it  is  they  that  have  made  him  an  educated  be- 
ing. Among  the  other  topics  that  our  children  study, 


82  OLD  AND  NEW 

mathematics  stand  forth  as  affording  a  part,  but  only  a 
part,  of  the  necessary  discipline:  they  teach  concentration 
and  accuracy,  but  not  much  more;  and  there  is  no  indica- 
tion that  mathematical  study  will  increase  as  Greek  and 
Latin  dwindle.  Natural  science  and  the  host  of  minor  sub- 
jects recently  adopted,  while  they  impart  interesting  and 
sometimes  valuable  information,  furnish  none  of  the  requi- 
site training.  It  is  to  modern  languages  that  we  must  look 
for  the  shaping  of  that  strong,  versatile,  well-rounded  in- 
telligence without  which  civilized  man  will  relapse  into 
barbarism.  Perhaps,  in  spite  of  the  best  endeavor,  French 
and  German  will  prove  inadequate  means;  if  they  do, 
either  the  classics  must  be  restored  or  another  discipline 
must  be  found,  else  our  race  will  degenerate.  At  all  events 
we  must  see  to  it  that  they  have  a  fair  trial.  We  hava  a 
duty  and  a  glorious  opportunity.  Our  object  must  be  the 
discipline  of  the  mind,  the  training  of  observation,  judg- 
ment, and  memory,  the  development  of  aesthetic  discrimi- 
nation and  enjoyment,  the  opening  of  a  wider  outlook  on 
the  world,  the  cultivation  of  a  love  of  good  reading.  If  we 
strive  with  all  our  might  for  these  things,  we  shall  soon  find, 
I  am  sure,  that  our  work  will  assume  a  new  dignity,  our 
pupils  will  face  their  books  with  a  better  spirit,  our  depart- 
ment will  deserve  and  win  a  respect  which  it  has  never  en- 
joyed before;  and,  lastly  —  as  a  by-product,  so  to  speak 
—  our  scholars  will  learn  a  great  deal  more  French  and 
German  than  they  ever  acquired  when  the  mastery  of  these 
languages  was  our  sole  ideal. 

The  long  vogue  of  the  classics  has  given  them  more  than 
an  exalted  position  and  a  superior  array  of  textbooks;  it 
has  provided  them  with  a  consistent,  effective,  and  long- 
tried  system  of  instruction.  In  our  groping  we  may  find 
a  guide  in  the  traditional  practices  of  our  elder  companion; 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  83 

or,  to  speak  concretely,  the  French  teacher  may  learn  some- 
thing by  occasionally  looking  in  upon  his  Latin  colleague 
next  door.  It  cannot  be  repeated  too  often  that  Latin  in- 
struction has  been  a  success;  for  a  thousand  years  or  so  it 
has  been  the  one  conspicuous  success  in  the  field  of  educa- 
tion. Our  successes  are  still  before  us.  A  modestly  recep- 
tive frame  of  mind  is  the  appropriate  one  for  us  when  we 
are  face  to  face  with  classical  practices.  When  the  living 
tongues  first  began  to  supersede  the  ancient  hi  our  schools, 
their  advent  was  accompanied  by  a  spirit  of  enthusiastic 
innovation  similar  to  that  which  quickened  the  Romantic 
movement  in  art.  There  was  the  same  talk  of  bursting 
narrow  bonds,  discarding  outworn  tradition,  and  return- 
ing to  nature.  The  Romantic  ebullition  soon  subsided, 
leaving,  however,  some  permanent  and  beneficial  memen- 
tos of  its  passage.  So  it  has  been  with  the  Romantic  period 
of  linguistic  pedagogy:  the  excitement  is  calmed,  the  ex- 
travagant claims  of  iconoclasts  are  exploded,  the  revolu- 
tionary spirit  has  abated,  the  allurements  of  the  new  no 
longer  blind  us  to  the  abiding  worth  of  the  old.  Something, 
however,  we  have  gained:  the  conviction  that  language  is 
a  thing  alive  and  that  its  inherent  interest  must  be  utilized 
as  the  best  incentive  to  study.  Our  experience  has  profited 
our  classical  brethren  as  well  as  ourselves;  and  if  we  ex- 
amine their  policy  today,  we  shall  see  that  while  it  has  suf- 
fered no  fundamental  alteration,  it  has  grafted  upon  itself 
some  of  the  fruits  of  neo-linguistic  theorizing.  It  has  not, 
however,  fallen  into  the  error  of  believing  that  all  difficul- 
ties can  be  solved  by  a  formula  —  that  will-o'-the-wisp 
which  has  led  us  on  such  mad  chases.  The  idea  that  there 
is  a  pedagogic  panacea,  a  sovereign  method  that  can  make 
everything  right,  is  a  fallacy  that  we  have  now  well-nigh 
outgrown,  although  it  still  smolders,  and  sometimes  crops 


84  OLD  AND  NEW 

up  where  one  would  least  expect  it.  A  few  years  ago  I  re- 
ceived a  visit  from  a  Japanese  professor,  an  eminently 
learned  and  practical  man,  who  was  traveling  around  the 
world  on  a  quest  for  the  one  sovereign  method  of  teaching 
a  foreign  language.  It  seems  that  in  Japanese  schools  the 
children  have  English,  if  I  remember  aright,  six  hours  a 
week  for  ten  years,  but  seldom  learn  enough  to  be  of  ma- 
terial use.  The  authorities  —  trusting  that  the  western 
world,  which  has  been  in  the  business  a  good  while,  had 
found  the  right  formula  —  sent  my  visitor  on  his  mission. 
I  described  to  him  all  the  methods  I  knew  —  the  "  natural," 
the  "  direct,"  the  "  cumulative,"  the  "  categorical,"  all 
that  had  ever  been  written  with  a  capital  M  —  but  soon 
I  found  that  he  knew  them  as  well  as  I  did,  and  had  tried 
them  all.  "  Have  you  devised  nothing  better  ?  "  he  asketf. 
"  Nothing,"  I  admitted;  "  haven't  you  discovered  a  way  ?  " 
"  None,"  said  he.  And  we  parted,  sadder  but  no  wiser  than 
before.  East  and  West  may  put  their  heads  together:  the 
precious  formula  will  never  come.  This  the  Latins  seem  to 
have  known  all  along,  although  there  was  a  time  when  they, 
too,  were  a  little  dazzled  by  Friar  Tuck's  lantern. 

But  Latin  tradition  possesses  something  besides  the  nega- 
tive virtue  of  skepticism.  It  has  the  very  positive  merit  of 
doing  one  thing  at  a  tune  and  doing  that  thoroughly;  of 
building  only  on  a  firm  foundation;  of  never  stepping  for- 
ward until  the  present  foothold  is  secure.  That,  with  a 
fitting  sense  of  the  dignity  of  the  subject  taught,  and  an 
unquestioning  faith  in  the  utility  of  every  part  of  it,  is  the 
most  valuable  lesson  that  our  classical  colleagues  can  teach 
us.  In  our  eagerness  to  hurry  on  to  the  things  that  seem 
practical  and  interesting,  we  almost  invariably  neglect 
those  prosaic  fundamentals  without  which  there  can  be 
no  real  progress  —  nor  even  genuine,  sustained  interest, 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  85 

because  there  is  no  understanding.  The  inflections  of  verbs, 
the  use  of  pronominal  forms,  the  significance  of  tenses  and 
moods,  the  meaning  of  connectives  afford  the  indispensable 
clue  to  the  foreign  sentence:  to  proceed  without  them  is  as 
futile  as  to  engage  on  mathematical  operations  with  no 
knowledge  of  the  signs  of  addition,  subtraction,  multiplica- 
tion, and  division.  The  attitude  of  the  average  schoolboy 
confronted  with  a  French  sentence  is  that  which  a  person 
unacquainted  with  the  plus  mark  might  assume  toward  the 
formula  a+b.  "  It  is  something  about  a  and  b"  he  says, 
"  but  what  a  has  to  do  with  b  I  cannot  tell."  It  is  just  this 
knowledge  of  the  relations  of  words  and  clauses  that  is  all- 
important  in  the  comprehension  of  a  foreign  tongue.  We 
must  look  out  for  the  plus  and  minus  symbols,  and  we  must 
realize  that  the  thorough  mastery  of  them  requires  much 
time,  drill,  and  patient  repetition.  It  does  not  follow  that 
the  first  two  or  three  years  of  study  should  be  nothing  but 
a  dull  grind:  the  very  practice  in  conjugation  and  syntax 
can  be  interestingly  diversified,  illustrated  by  attractive 
texts;  the  ingenuity  of  pupils  may  be  aroused  in  devising 
new  variations  and  in  executing  manifold  imitations  of 
model  constructions.  Furthermore,  a  considerable  amount 
of  fairly  rapid  sight-reading  or  translation,  done  at  first 
mainly  by  the  instructor,  may  be  introduced,  as  a  relief 
and  a  stimulus,  from  the  very  start.  The  exhilarating  exer- 
cise of  swift  reading  should  never  be  abandoned;  but  we 
should  avoid  the  almost  universal  mistake  of  making  all 
translations  rapid  and  superficial.  Here  is  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  our  failure.  For  several  years,  both  in  school  and 
in  college,  a  given  portion  of  text  should  be  minutely  ana- 
lyzed and  parsed.  In  no  other  way  can  pupils  be  made  to 
heed  the  really  essential  things;  in  no  other  way  can  the 
belief  be  hammered  into  them  that  the  foreign  writer  actu- 


86  OLD  AND  NEW 

ally  means  something,  and  that  his  words,  when  turned 
into  English,  must  invariably  make  sense. 

Our  young  school  children  need  constant  oversight. 
They  are  often  left  too  much  to  their  own  devices.  For 
instance,  after  they  have  had  a  few  lessons  in  grammar,  a 
bit  of  German  is  assigned  to  them  to  translate  at  home. 
This  is  a  task  for  which  they  are  totally  unfit.  To  ask  them 
to  do  it  is  to  put  upon  them  the  work  that  belongs  to  the 
teacher.  For  a  long  time,  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  new  reading 
or  translation  should  be  done  in  the  classroom,  and  the 
pupil's  home  lesson  should  be  a  review.  The  same  thing 
is  true  of  grammar:  very  few  children  are  capable  of  assim- 
ilating linguistic  principles  from  a  book  until  the  rules  and 
examples  have  been  carefully  expounded  by  the  living  voice. 
The  bane  of  much  of  our  instruction  is  that  the  master  does 
not  teach  —  he  "  hears  lessons."  Vigilant  watch  must  be 
kept,  also,  to  prevent  the  child  from  falling  into  error 
through  ignorance  of  English.  This  applies  not  only  to 
the  interpretation  of  grammatical  statements,  but  likewise, 
and  still  more,  to  the  translation  of  foreign  texts.  It  is  im- 
possible, without  the  closest  and  most  sympathetic  atten- 
tion, to  imagine  what  idea  a  common  English  word  may 
suggest  to  the  youthful  mind.  I  remember  that  in  a  class 
which  I  was  visiting  a  little  girl  translated  the  German 
schlau  by  pretty.  Her  teacher  corrected,  rebuked,  and 
passed  on.  Wondering  how  the  child  got  such  a  notion,  I 
turned  to  the  vocabulary  of  the  reader,  and  there  I  found 
the  definition,  schlau  —  cunning.  The  only  meaning  that 
this  child,  or  almost  any  American  of  her  years,  ever  at- 
tached to  cunning  was  pretty.  A  large  proportion  of  the 
faulty  translation  that  so  vexes  teachers  is  due  merely  to 
lack  of  familiarity  with  English  words;  and  for  this  the 
child  is  seldom  to  blame.  The  difficulty  is  increased  in  the 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  87 

case  of  boys  and  girls  of  foreign  parentage  who  have  no 
native  language  at  all.  In  the  evening  high  schools  of 
Boston  I  have  met  many  a  youth  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
who  scarcely  had  the  gift  of  human  speech:  his  parents, 
perhaps,  spoke  only  German,  the  school  teachers  had  spoken 
only  English,  and  he  had  never  learned  either  tongue  well 
enough  to  do  anything  but  express  the  most  rudimentary 
concepts.  Such  pupils  naturally  demand  special  treatment 
and  unwearying  patience. 

In  our  field  of  education,  more,  perhaps,  than  in  any 
other,  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  fit  the  same  coat  upon 
all  comers:  sometimes  the  infant  has  been  smothered  in 
the  pedagogic  raiment  of  the  grown-up;  oftener  the  adult 
has  been  all  too  scantily  clad  in  the  educational  dress  of 
babyhood.  It  seems  self-evident  —  but  it  obviously  needs 
to  be  repeated  many  times  —  that  the  method  best  suited 
to  one  age  not  only  may  be,  but  must  be,  ill  adapted  to 
another;  that  a  course  which  is  natural  to  the  child  must 
be  unnatural  to  the  man.  Some  general  principles  the 
pedagogue  should  always  bear  in  mind;  but  the  applica- 
tion of  them,  the  method  itself,  should  vary  with  perfect 
freedom  according  to  the  age,  antecedents,  and  ability  of 
the  scholars.  It  should  vary,  also,  in  accordance  with  the 
character  and  competence  of  the  master.  Few  spectacles 
are  more  painful  than  that  of  a  teacher  conscientiously 
endeavoring  to  pursue  a  course  for  which  he  is  by  nature  or 
training  unfit.  Everyone  who  adopts  the  pedagogic  pro- 
fession should  strive  to  qualify  himself  to  pattern  his  in- 
struction after  any  rational  system  that  may  be  required; 
but  every  born  teacher  will  develop  out  of  the  system 
adopted  a  way  of  his  own. 

If  a  language  is  to  seem  alive  it  must  be  read  aloud  and 
spoken.  And  here  we  meet  the  greatest  of  the  permanent 


88  OLD  AND  NEW 

and  unavoidable  obstacles  in  our  field  of  instruction  —  the 
difficulty  of  pronunciation.  Here  again  the  French  teacher 
has  a  harder  task  than  the  German:  firstly,  because  the 
French  sounds  and  intonations  are  more  remote  from  Ameri- 
can habits,  secondly,  because  the  standard  exacted  by  the 
French  ear  is  higher  than  that  demanded  by  the  German, 
and  thirdly,  because  proficiency  in  German  pronunciation 
is  often  facilitated  by  the  presence  of  many  pupils  of  Ger- 
man extraction.  I  shall  therefore  consider  primarily  the 
French  side  of  the  problem,  although  the  general  principles 
involved  belong  equally  to  German.  It  is  well  to  accept 
once  for  all  the  fact  that  French  pronunciation  is  hard  and 
requires  a  vast  amount  of  intelligent  teaching  and  patient 
exercise.  Almost  invariably  it  is  slighted.  In  bad  schools 
it  is  scarcely  taught  at  all,  the  teacher  expecting  that  scnol- 
ars  will  "  pick  it  up  "  —  heaven  knows  where.  Hosts  of 
boys  are  sent  up  to  college  who  do  not  even  know  that  the 
5  at  the  end  of  plural  nouns  is  silent.  For  such  pupils 
French  is  no  living  language  —  it  can  hardly  be  a  language 
at  all.  Other  teachers,  more  conscientious,  waste  a  great 
deal  of  time  in  hearing  pupils  read  aloud  without  ever  hav- 
ing taught  them  how  to  read.  Such  reading  merely  con- 
firms them  in  their  bad  habits.  The  commonest  mistake 
consists  in  offering  only  a  brief  (and  generally  incorrect) 
exposition  of  principles  at  the  first  lesson  and  then  trusting 
to  subsequent  occasional  directions  and  a  large  amount  of 
unconnected  reading.  There  is  only  one  time  to  learn  to 
pronounce,  and  that  is  at  the  very  beginning:  if  scholars 
do  not  pronounce  right,  they  will  pronounce  wrong;  and 
when  they  have  pronounced  wrong  for  some  months  they 
are  generally  incurable.  Not  only  do  they  take  no  pleasure 
in  their  work,  feeling  that  what  they  acquire  is  a  mere  sham, 
but  they  are  afraid  to  open  their  mouths  to  utter  a  French 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  89 

sound;  if  they  want  to  ask  the  meaning  of  a  French  word, 
they  do  not  dare  to  speak,  because  they  cannot  pronounce 
it.    The  bogy  of  French  pronunciation  cannot  be  dodged; 
it  must  be  conquered.   Now,  many  American  teachers  who 
know  this  full  well,  and  are  anxious  to  do  their  duty,  have 
not  the  courage  to  undertake  the  task,  being  conscious  that 
their  own  pronunciation  is  imperfect.     Of  course  an  in- 
structor should  embrace  every  opportunity  to  prepare  him- 
self for  his  business  in  every  way,  and  in  this  respect  more 
than  any  other;  but  the  idea  that  a  teacher  not  to  the  man- 
ner born  is  unfit  to  impart  a  good  pronunciation  is  a  delu- 
sion as  harmful  as  it  is  natural.    The  best  results  I  have 
ever  seen  achieved  in  French  pronunciation,  with  large 
classes  of  schoolboys,  were  obtained  by  an  elderly  American 
gentleman  whose  own  accent,  though  carefully  acquired, 
was  not  that  of  a  Parisian.    I  am  not  sure  that  he  had  ever 
been  abroad.    But  he  taught  pronunciation  with  the  same 
seriousness  and  thoroughness  with  which  he  taught  gram- 
mar, composition,  or  translation;    he  never  would  let  a 
class  go  until  every  member  of  it  pronounced  as  well  as  he 
did;  and  while  his  pronunciation  was  far  from  satisfactory 
to  himself,  it  was  admirable  in  the  mouth  of  a  pupil.    In- 
deed, on  the  general  question  whether  a  Frenchman  or  an 
American  is  the  better  teacher  of  French  pronunciation, 
there  may  well  be  a  difference  of  opinion.    There  are  ad- 
vantages on  both  sides.    The  Frenchman  has  confidence 
in  himself,  and  this  confidence  is  shared  by  his  scholars, 
who  feel  sure  that  they  are  getting  the  real  thing;   this  is 
worth  much.    On  the  other  hand,  the  American  knows  the 
difficulties  that  are  to  be  overcome:  if  he  has  succeeded  hi 
consciously  acquiring  an  absolutely  good  accent,  he  is  ob- 
viously in  a  position  to  show  others  how  to  do  it;  if  he  has 
not,  his  pronunciation,  moderately  good  but  less  foreign 


90  OLD  AND  NEW 

than  that  of  the  foreigner,  is  less  discouraging  to  his  pupils 
and  more  readily  imitated  by  them. 

Of  whatever  race  the  master  be,  he  should  not  be  satisfied 
with  English  substitutes  for  French  sounds.  Usually  there 
is  no  attempt  made  to  teach  any  French  sound  but  u  and 
the  four  nasal  vowels;  all  the  rest  are  unquestioningly  re- 
placed by  the  English  vowels  and  consonants  that  most 
nearly  resemble  them,  although  both  teachers  and  pupils 
may  be  haunted  by  the  consciousness  that  they  are  really 
pronouncing  English  and  not  French  at  all.  Especial  pains 
should  be  taken  to  appropriate  some  kind  of  French  r;  the 
r  may,  indeed,  be  regarded  as  the  central  feature  in  the 
acquisition  of  any  foreign  language  by  an  English-speaking 
person.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  and  characteristic  ele- 
ment of  a  spoken  tongue  —  the  one  by  which  we  guess  the 
nationality  of  a  stranger  without  understanding  a  word 
he  says  —  is  intonation,  the  varied  sequence  of  pitch;  and 
that  is  seldom  even  mentioned  in  schools.  Every  language 
has  its  familiar  inflections;  these  should  be  taught  as  care- 
fully as  the  individual  sounds.  Very  helpful  is  a  set  of 
phrases  provided  with  a  musical  notation  of  pitch  and  tune. 
For  the  proper  study  of  the  single  vowels  and  consonants 
a  phonetic  alphabet  is  very  desirable;  without  it  the  be- 
ginner, unless  he  be  provided  with  a  phonograph,  cannot 
practise  by  himself  and  is  helpless  the  moment  he  leaves 
his  teacher. 

With  a  full  consciousness  of  what  is  before  him,  with  a 
definite,  systematic  plan  of  campaign,  with  such  help  as 
may  be  needed  in  the  way  of  alphabet  and  music,  the  in- 
structor should  first  drill  his  class  long  and  carefully  in 
single  sounds,  then  in  syllables,  then  in  words,  and  finally 
in  sentences  —  always  taking  care  that  his  pupils  hear  more 
of  his  own  correct  pronunciation  than  of  the  faulty  utter- 


MODERN  LANGUAGE  TEACHING  91 

ance  of  their  comrades.  Sound,  syllable,  word,  or  phrase 
should  be  spoken  by  the  learner  immediately  after  the 
master,  before  the  auditory  impression  has  become  blurred. 
If  this  initial  practice  is  faithfully  and  rightly  conducted, 
the  subsequent  training  —  and  there  must  be  much  of  it 
throughout  the  course  —  will  be  interesting  and  compara- 
tively easy.  Then  both  teacher  and  pupil  will  have  the 
satisfaction  of  at  least  striving  to  attain  genuine  French 
and  German.  The  schoolboy's  diffidence  —  his  unwilling- 
ness to  hear  his  own  voice  attempting  the  strange  tongue  — 
will  vanish;  a  sense  of  mastery  will  replace  his  distrust. 
Then,  and  then  only,  will  the  modern  languages  come  into 
their  own;  not  until  then  can  we  answer  the  question 
whether  modern  language  teaching  is  a  failure. 


VI 
THE  DARK  AGES1 

THE  Century  Dictionary  gives  the  following  definition: 
"  The  dark  ages,  a  period  of  European  history,  beginning 
with  or  shortly  before  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  of 
the  West  (A.D.  476),  marked  by  a  general  decline  of  learn- 
ing and  civilization.  It  was  introduced  by  the  great  influx 
of  barbarians  into  western  Europe  in  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries  known  as  the  wandering  of  the  nations,  and  is 
reckoned  by  Hallam  as  extending  to  the  eleventh  century, 
when  a  general  revival  of  wealth,  manners,  taste,  and 
learning  began,  and  by  others  to  the  time  of  Dante  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  or  later."  This  last  extension  we  may 
well  leave  out  of  account;  for  to  apply  the  term  "  dark  " 
to  the  century  that  saw  the  greatest  scholar,  the  greatest 
theologian,  and  the  greatest  poet  of  our  Christian  era  would 
be  too  manifestly  unfit. 

Let  us  confine  our  darkness  to  the  period  between  the 
fifth  century  and  the  eleventh.  It  will  be  all  the  more 
opaque  for  this  concentration.  And  then,  pulling  down 
the  shades  before  and  behind,  let  us  try  to  realize  how 
dark  the  darkness  really  was.  I  shall  ask  you  to  plunge 
with  me  into  the  very  thick  of  it.  We  are  at  the  Frankish 
court  in  the  eighth  century,  on  a  visit  to  the  Palace  School. 
Into  this  ancient  institution  of  the  Franks  some  new  spirit 
was  infused  by  Charlemagne,  who  became  himself  a  pupil, 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  Amer- 
ica in  Philadelphia,  on  Dec.  26, 1912. 

91 


THE  DARK  AGES  93 

having  called  in  Alcuin  as  a  teacher.  Here  is  his  opinion 
(recorded,  to  be  sure,  by  his  master)  of  the  value  of  a 
liberal  education:  "  Could  anyone  really  interested  in  the 
pursuit  and  investigation  of  matters  so  important  to  society 
at  large,  and  truly  desirous  of  practising  such  excellent 
virtues,  have  it  in  his  heart  to  hazard  the  daring  assertion 
that  our  discussion  has  been  in  vain  ?  For  myself  I  frankly 
confess  that  love  of  knowledge  only  has  prompted  my  ques- 
tions; and  I  thank  you  for  your  kindness  in  answering 
them.  I  highly  value  the  affectionate  candor  of  your  re- 
plies, and  feel  convinced  that  they  will  be  most  profitable 
to  all  who  without  prejudice  or  the  blot  of  envy  may  sit 
down  and  read  them." 

Today  we  are  not  so  easily  satisfied.  At  the  recent 
meeting  of  the  National  Education  Association  hi  Chicago, 
according  to  the  papers,  "  high  school  education  throughout 
the  United  States  was  branded  as  '  generally  bookish, 
scholastic,  abstract,  and  inadequate  to  meet  the  practical 
problems  of  life/  in  a  report  submitted  to  the  national 
council.  .  .  .  The  report,  based  on  investigation  in  twenty- 
five  States,  declared  the  system  of  high  school  teaching 
is  just  where  it  was  thirty  years  ago  and  that  this  back- 
wardness is  due  to  the  plan  of  high  schools  to  prepare 
pupils  '  for  colleges  and  universities  rather  than  for  life.' 
'  The  whole  trouble  with  our  high  school  education/  "  de- 
clared the  reader  of  the  report,  "  '  is  that  it  is  regarded 
too  much  as  merely  a  preparation  for  the  university. 
Instead  of  dealing  with  the  problems  of  life  today,  the 
students  are  taught  to  deal  with  the  language,  politics  and 
customs  of  fifteen  centuries  ago.  Nearly  all  the  high 
school  teachers  are  college  graduates  who  have  no  adequate 
knowledge  of  affairs  outside  of  colleges.  Their  teaching 
is,  therefore,  bookish,  scholastic,  and  abstract.  We  need  a 


94  OLD  AND  NEW 

change  of  aim  in  high  school  teaching,  a  look  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  farm,  shop,  and  home.  While  we  do  not  recom- 
mend an  education  entirely  vocational,  we  urge  a  departure 
from  the  college  idea.' ' 

If  we  have  reason  for  discontent  even  now,  after  so 
many  ages  of  enlightenment,  what  must  have  been  the 
barbarous  teaching  inflicted  on  the  children  of  the  eighth 
century  ?  What  can  they  have  had  to  compare  with  a 
really  modern  high  school  curriculum  compounded,  let  us 
say,  of  some  English,  a  little  German,  a  bit  of  elementary 
algebra,  a  sample  of  plane  geometry,  some  pages  of  Ameri- 
can history,  practice  in  geometrical  and  freehand  drawing, 
a  good  deal  of  shop-work,  lessons  in  bookkeeping  (of  a  type 
used  only  in  schools),  training  in  salesmanship,  a  few  hours 
of  botany,  physiology,  and  calisthenics  ?  When  Alcuin 
was  a  boy,  the  secular  course,  in  the  school  he  attended, 
comprised  these  subjects:  grammar,  rhetoric,  jurispru- 
dence, poetry,  astronomy,  physics,  and  explanation  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Alcuin  studied  also  the  theology  of  the 
New  Testament,  science,  and  general  literature.  If  the 
present  day  course  is  "  generally  bookish,"  what  shall  we 
call  this  ? 

Now  let  us  suppose  that  the  pupil  has  received  his 
elementary  training,  bookish  or  bookless  as  the  case  may 
be,  and,  pushing  his  studies  further,  craves  admission  to 
the  brotherhood  of  scholars.  In  our  era,  as  you  are  all 
aware,  the  thing  for  him  to  do  is  to  make  himself  an  un- 
disputed authority  in  some  special  matter,  such  as:  the 
art  of  fishing  among  the  ancient  Greeks;  the  serpent  motive 
in  the  ancient  art  of  Central  America  and  Mexico;  isola- 
tion as  a  criterion  of  species;  the  heredity  of  coat  color  in 
mice;  some  new  derivatives  of  pyromucic  acid;  the  origin 
of  the  stratified  rocks  of  the  New  York  series;  the  ways 


THE  DARK  AGES  95 

and  means  of  making  payments;  reactions  of  the  crayfish 
to  sensory  stimuli;  the  expansion  and  compressibility  of 
ether  and  alcohol  in  the  neighborhoods  of  their  boiling 
points  —  typical  subjects  culled  at  random  from  a  list  of 
the  particular  fields  cultivated  at  some  tune  by  students  of 
distinction  at  my  own  university.  I  say  "  culled  at  ran- 
dom." I  should  modify  that  statement.  My  choice  was 
restricted  by  the  need  of  picking  titles  which  I  could  pro- 
nounce and  you  could  understand.  Now  it  is  not  to  be 
imagined  for  a  moment  that  the  cultivator  of  any  one  of 
these  gardens  has  ever  tasted  the  fruit  of  any  other  —  that 
the  man  who  fishes  among  the  ancient  Greeks  knows  any- 
thing about  the  ways  and  means  of  making  payments,  or 
that  the  experimenter  in  the  compressibility  of  alcohol 
can  divine  the  serpent  motive  in  Central  American  art. 
No.  Each  keeps  strictly  to  his  own  domain.  The  one, 
blind  to  the  reactions  of  the  crayfish,  limits  his  diet  to  new 
derivatives  of  pyromucic  acid;  the  other,  heedless  of  the 
dangers  of  isolation  as  a  criterion  of  species,  confines  his 
walks  to  the  stratified  rocks  of  New  York.  Was  it  thus, 
say,  in  the  seventh  century  ?  Quite  the  contrary.  To 
be  a  scholar  in  those  remote  times,  one  had  to  know  all  of 
these  subjects,  or  the  things  whose  places  they  have  taken 
—  studies  of  corresponding  difficulty  and  importance. 
Look  at  St.  Isidore's  Origins:  not  a  work  of  genius,  by  any 
means,  but  a  specimen  of  the  kind  of  erudition  a  Dark  Age 
man  was  expected  to  possess,  if  he  wanted  to  be  regarded 
as  a  master.  The  twenty  books  of  that  work  treat  of 
grammar;  rhetoric  and  dialectics;  mathematics;  medicine; 
laws  and  times;  ecclesiastical  books  and  services;  God,  the 
angels,  and  religious  orders;  church  and  sects,  with  a  dis- 
cussion of  pagan  gods;  laws  and  societies;  miscellaneous 
lexicographical  material;  man  and  portents;  animals;  the 


96  OLD  AND  NEW 

world  and  its  parts;  the  earth  and  its  parts;  building  and 
fields;  stones  and  metals;  agriculture;  war  and  sports; 
ships,  buildings,  clothes;  food  and  implements.  But  (you 
will  say)  all  of  this  information  is  second-hand,  most  of 
it  is  superficial,  much  of  it  is  false;  it  is  better  to  find  out 
something  fresh  and  true  about  the  heredity  of  coat  color 
hi  mice  than  to  burden  one's  mind  with  a  mass  of  hetero- 
geneous and  doubtful  learning.  Yet  I  ask:  is  it  ?  From 
the  point  of  view  of  science,  regarded  as  an  end  in  itself, 
you  are  probably  right  —  although  I  may  remark  here  that 
the  accusation  of  inaccuracy  is  a  dangerous  stone  for  the 
scholarship  of  one  age  to  throw  at  that  of  another:  who  can 
tell  how  the  results  of  all  our  "  original  research  "  will  look 
to  the  learned  world  a  thousand  years  hence  ?  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  state,  on  the  other  hand,  the  best  gift 
anyone  can  bestow  is  that  of  a  judicious,  well-rounded 
citizen,  fully  informed  in  the  soundest  learning  his  age  can 
give.  And  in  the  interest  of  the  individual,  is  not  breadth 
of  understanding  about  as  important  as  anything  ?  I 
wonder  whether  there  is  to  be  found  among  the  monarchs 
of  the  world  today  —  or  even  among  the  presidents  —  one 
who  could  translate  a  difficult  philosophical  work  from 
Latin  into  the  vernacular.  Yet  this  was  done  by  a  ninth- 
century  English  king  who  surely  left  nothing  to  be  desired 
on  the  score  of  efficiency. 

Let  us  turn  back  to  Charlemagne,  one  of  whose  biog- 
raphers tells  us  that  the  great  king  "  was  ever  learning, 
and  fond  of  learning;  no  subject  came  amiss  to  him; 
everything  from  the  most  commonplace  everyday  occur- 
rences to  the  profoundest  philosophical  and  theological 
inquiries  interested  him.  The  price  of  commodities;  the 
stocking  and  planting  of  farms;  the  building  of  houses, 
churches,  palaces,  bridges,  fortresses,  ships,  and  canals; 


THE  DARK  AGES  97 

the  course  of  the  stars;  the  text  of  the  Scriptures;  the  ap- 
pointment of  schools;  the  sallies  of  wit;  the  hair-splitting 
subtleties  of  metaphysics;  the  unknown  depths  of  theology; 
the  origins  of  law;  the  reason  of  usage  in  the  manner  and 
life  of  the  nations;  their  traditions  in  poetry,  legend, 
and  song;  the  mysterious  framework  of  liturgical  forms; 
musical  notation;  the  Gregorian  chant;  the  etymology  of 
words;  the  study  of  languages;  the  flexion  of  verbs;  and 
many  more  topics.  ...  He  spoke  Latin  as  fluently  as 
German,  and  had  a  fair  knowledge  of  Greek.  Einhart 
says  that  '  he  spent  much  time  and  labor  with  Alcuin  hi 
the  study  of  rhetoric,  dialectics,  and  astronomy,  learned 
arithmetic,  and  with  eager  curiosity  and  intelligent  scru- 
tiny applied  himself  to  the  investigation  of  the  motions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies.' ' 

Einhart  relates  further:  "  After  a  long  absence  the  most 
victorious  Charles  returned  into  Gaul,  and  caused  the  chil- 
dren, whom  he  had  left  with  Clement  as  his  pupils,  to  be 
brought  before  him.  He  required  them  to  be  examined, 
and  was  amazed  at  the  commendable  progress  of  the  poorer 
class  of  children,  whose  written  productions  were  most 
creditable  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  those  of  illustrious 
parentage  showed  very  poor  specimens  of  their  skill.  He 
then  set  the  good  scholars  on  his  right,  and  the  bad  on  his 
left,  saying:  '  I  praise  you  much,  dear  children,  for  your 
excellent  efforts,  and  desire  you  to  continue  so  that  you 
may  attain  unto  perfection;  then  I  intend  to  give  you  rich 
bishoprics,  or  splendid  abbeys,  and  shall  ever  regard  you 
as  persons  of  merit.'  Then  he  turned  in  anger  to  those  on 
his  left,  who  trembled  at  his  frowns  and  the  sound  of  his 
voice,  which  resembled  the  roll  of  thunder,  as  he  cried  out 
to  them:  '  Look  here,  ye  scions  of  the  best  nobility,  ye 
pampered  ones,  who,  trusting  to  your  birth  or  fortune, 


98  OLD  AND  NEW 

have  disobeyed  me,  and  instead  of  studying,  as  you  were 
bound  and  I  expected  you  to  do,  have  wasted  your  time  in 
idleness,  on  play,  luxury,  or  unprofitable  occupation.'  He 
then  took  his  accustomed  oath,  and  with  uplifted  head  and 
arm,  said  in  a  voice  of  thunder:  '  By  the  king  of  heaven, 
let  others  admire  you  as  much  as  they  please;  as  for  me, 
I  set  little  store  by  your  birth  or  beauty;  understand  ye 
and  remember  it  well,  that  unless  you  give  heed  speedily 
to  amend  your  past  negligence  by  diligent  study,  you  will 
never  obtain  anything  from  Charles.' ' 

Imagine,  if  you  can,  one  of  our  college  presidents  or 
trustees,  or  a  governor  at  Commencement,  "  taking  his 
accustomed  oath "  and  addressing  the  "  swells "  and 
"  sports  "  in  such  a  style  as  this  —  and  promising  "  rich 
bishoprics  and  splendid  abbeys  "  to  the  "  greasy  grinds  f " 
Why,  we  ourselves,  the  official  advocates  of  study,  generally 
feel  constrained  to  express  our  admiration  of  it  in  depre- 
catory terms.  How  often  is  it  dinned  into  our  ears  that 
scholastic  success  is  no  test  of  real  ability,  that  the  men 
most  useful  in  after-life  are  those  who  scorn  to  devote 
themselves  to  books!  Yet  Charlemagne  was  no  mere 
academic  theorist.  Contrast  with  his  attitude  the  super- 
cilious pose  so  prevalent  today  —  prevalent  among  adults, 
and  still  more  among  children.  Has  the  world  ever  seen  a 
more  completely  self-satisfied  being  than  an  empty-headed 
American  high  school  pupil  ?  Here  is  an  interesting  bit 
from  the  notes  of  a  recent  English  traveler  in  our  country, 
who  had  been  visiting  one  of  our  institutions  of  learning: 
"  I  had  formed  no  theory  as  to  the  value  of  some  of  the 
best  juvenile  education  in  the  Eastern  States.  But  I  had 
learned  one  thing.  I  knew  the  secret  of  the  fine,  proud 
bearing  of  young  America.  A  child  is  not  a  fool;  a  child 
is  almost  always  uncannily  shrewd.  And  when  it  sees  a 


THE  DARK  AGES  99 

splendid  palace  provided  for  it,  when  it  sees  money  lavished 
on  hygienic  devices  for  its  comfort,  even  upon  trifles  for 
its  distraction,  when  it  sees  brains  all  bent  on  discovering 
the  best,  nicest  ways  of  dealing  with  its  instincts,  when 
it  sees  itself  the  centre  of  a  magnificent  pageant,  ritual, 
devotion,  almost  worship,  it  naturally  lifts  its  chin,  puts 
its  shoulders  back,  steps  out  with  a  spring,  and  glances 
confidently  upon  the  whole  world.  Who  wouldn't  ?  " 

There  is  a  supreme  type  of  self-complacency  which  is 
born  of  sheer  ignorance,  an  ignorance  so  absolute  as  to 
be  unaware  of  the  existence  of  anything  to  learn.  And 
this  self-complacency,  I  have  already  said,  is  not  confined 
to  school  children:  it  is  shared  by  old  and  young.  It  may 
be  called  the  dominating  spirit  of  our  time.  One  of  its 
marks  is  a  contempt  for  thorough  knowledge  and  a  pro- 
found distrust  of  anyone  who  is  really  well-informed.  An 
expert  opinion  on  any  subject  becomes  valueless  the  mo- 
ment we  learn  that  it  emanates  from  a  "  college  professor." 
When  a  conspicuously  competent  person  is  suggested  for 
public  office,  the  most  damning  accusation  that  can  be 
hurled  at  him  is  the  epithet  "  academic."  Few,  indeed,  can 
bear  up  under  the  suspicion  of  actually  knowing  something. 

A  very  serious  college  paper  publishes  an  article  by  an 
evidently  earnest  young  man  who  maintains  that  scholar- 
ship is  essentially  narrow  and  selfish;  the  really  generous 
student  is  he  who  works,  not  for  the  cultivation  of  his 
own  mind,  but  for  the  glory  of  his  college.  As  if  a  college 
could  derive  glory  from  anything  but  the  fulfillment  of  its 
proper  mission,  the  cultivation  of  the  individual  minds 
entrusted  to  it!  The  altruistic  tone  assumed  by  devotees 
of  college  amusements  is  peculiarly  irritating.  I  am 
willing  that  children  should  make  mud  pies:  it  is  their 
nature  to.  But  when  they  begin  to  declare  that  they  are 


100  OLD  AND  NEW 

making  mud  pies,  not  for  their  own  delectation,  but  for 
the  embellishment  of  their  city,  it  is  time  they  were  sent 
on  errands  for  their  mother.  Students  are  always  ready 
to  do  anything  but  study.  Study  is  hard  and  distasteful, 
because  our  boys  and  girls  have  never  been  used  to  mental 
concentration;  any  other  activity,  whether  it  be  athletics 
or  "  social  service,"  seems  to  them  less  painful,  hence  more 
profitable.  You  are  all  aware  how  dangerous  it  is  to 
assume,  on  the  part  of  our  college  classes,  any  definite 
knowledge  of  any  subject.  Last  year  I  had  occasion  to 
question  a  good  many  students  about  our  friend  Charle- 
magne; and  one  after  another  unblushingly  assigned  him 
to  the  eighteenth  century.  A  colleague  in  a  "  fresh  water  " 
college  could  find  no  one  in  his  class  who  knew  what  event 
is  celebrated  on  the  fourth  of  July.  In  a  course  in  French 
literature,  taken  mainly  by  Juniors,  a  request  to  compare 
a  certain  drama  with  Othello  drew  forth  the  admission  that 
a  considerable  part  of  the  class  knew  nothing  of  Shak- 
spere's  play.  "  We  had  Hamlet"  they  cried,  as  if  Shak- 
spere  were  a  disease  from  which  one  attack  made  them 
immune.  Of  course  it  had  never  occurred  to  them  that 
anyone  could  be  so  mad  as  to  read  a  book  not  prescribed. 
You  must  have  noticed  how  very  difficult  it  has  become 
for  college  students  not  only  to  write  but  to  read  their 
mother  tongue.  We  give  them  books  to  study,  and  the 
boys,  for  the  most  part,  obligingly  plow  through  them,  for 
they  are  good  fellows;  but  they  are  no  wiser  after  than 
before.  The  text  has  conveyed  nothing  to  them,  because 
they  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  common  English  words. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  (let  me  say  once  more)  that 
this  vast  and  growing  ignorance  is  peculiar  to  school  and 
college.  It  pervades  society.  Even  the  teacher  and  the 
author  are  coming  under  its  sway.  Men  of  note  are  losing 


THE  DARK  AGES  IOI 

the  power  to  speak  or  write  their  own  language.  This 
subject  was  tellingly  discussed  by  our  last  year's  president, 
and  I  need  not  dwell  upon  it. 

The  confusion  of  tongues,  however,  is  not  the  only  plague 
fostered  by  darkness.  Ignorance,  having  no  means  of 
comparison,  necessarily  lacks  a  criterion,  and  is  therefore 
an  easy  prey  to  specious  fallacy.  It  runs  after  every 
novelty  that  for  the  moment  appeals  to  its  rudimentary 
imagination.  At  what  previous  age  in  the  history  of 
mankind  has  there  been  such  a  cult  of  the  absurd  as  we 
see  today  ?  In  art,  literature,  music,  science,  history, 
psychology,  education,  religion,  politics,  the  charlatan  is 
sure  of  a  congregation,  provided  his  antics  be  sufficiently 
startling  and  grotesque.  In  the  field  of  humor  Washing- 
ton Irving  yields  to  Mutt  and  Jeff.  In  religion,  we  see 
flourishing  sects  whose  very  names  seem  like  a  blasphe- 
mous caricature.  New  schools  of  psychology  are  busily  ex- 
plaining the  noted  characters  of  fiction  in  the  light  of 
arbitrary  and  eccentric  physiological  theories.  Musicians 
vie  with  one  another  in  noisy  cacophony.  Of  one  of  the 
latest  of  the  sowers  of  discord  an  up-to-date  critic  says: 
"  In  his  earlier  years  he  wrote  music  which  was  thoroughly 
clear  and  understandable,  though  of  no  special  value. 
Then,  I  surmise,  he  decided  to  draw  attention  to  himself 
forcibly  by  producing  things  of  that  wild  extravagance 
which  he  is  now  putting  forth.  It  was  a  sort  of  artistic 
lie.  But  there  are  plenty  of  persons  who,  if  they  tell  lies 
long  enough,  will  actually  end  by  implicitly  believing  them 

to  be  the  truth.    That  is 's  case.    He  has  come  to 

believe  so  implicitly  in  his  own  artistic  lie  that  he  now 
lies  with  absolute  sincerity.  He  wants  to  be  a  revolu- 
tionist for  the  sake  of  being  one."  Of  how  many  of  our 
one-day  prophets  can  the  same  thing  be  said!  Our  critic 


102  OLD  AND  NEW 

goes  on  to  describe  a  composition  by  this  artist:  "  It  was 
music  which  sounded  something  like  what  you  might 
expect  if  you  placed  a  child  at  the  piano  and  allowed 
him  to  pound  as  he  wished.  Do  not  imagine  I  say  this 
because  I  am  not  modern  hi  my  sympathies.  There  are 
few  who  are  more  so  than  I.  The  unhappy  consequence 

of  all  this  is  that has  founded  a  school  and  has  a 

number  of  disciples  who  try  to  ape  his  style  without  pos- 
sessing his  musical  knowledge.  And  it  so  stands  that 
anybody  will  soon  be  able  to  write  music,  and  however 
impossible  the  things  may  turn  out,  they  will  be  seriously 
accepted  as  such." 

In  art,  the  Impressionists  have  long  since  been  succeeded 
by  the  Post-Impressionists,  the  Futurists,  and  the  Cubists. 
The  Futurists,  according  to  their  own  definition,  "  stand 
upon  the  extreme  promontory  of  the  centuries;  and  why 
should  they  look  behind,  when  they  have  to  break  in  myste- 
rious portals  of  the  Impossible."  "  To  admire  an  old  pic- 
ture," they  say,  "  is  to  pour  our  sensitiveness  into  a  funeral 
urn,  instead  of  casting  it  forward  in  violent  gushes  of  crea- 
tion and  action."  "  We  stand,"  they  declare,  "  on  the 
summit  of  the  world,  and  cast  our  challenge  to  the  stars." 
"  We  must  destroy  hi  sculpture,  as  hi  every  art,  the  tradi- 
tional nobility  of  marble,  and  bronze  also  must  go.  The 
sculptor  can  and  must  employ  twenty  different  substances, 
such  as  glass,  wood,  cardboard,  cement,  horsehair,  leather, 
wool,  mirrors,  electric  light,  and  concrete.  In  the  straight 
lines  of  a  match  there  is  more  truth  and  beauty  than  in  all 
the  muscular  contortions  of  the  Laocoon."  One  of  the  prod- 
ucts of  this  school  is  thus  described:  "  Today  at  the  Salon 
d'Automne  I  have  seen  a  Futurist  sculpture  group,  and 
a  most  extraordinary  achievement  it  is.  It  does  not  fulfill 
all  the  demands  of  the  new  art,  for  it  is  in  the  medium  of 


THE  DARK  AGES  103 

plaster,  and  there  were  no  signs  of  such  adventitious  adorn- 
ments as  horsehair,  mirrors,  electric  lights,  and  so  on. 
I  should  judge  that  it  is  intended  to  represent  a  group  of 
wrestlers,  but  I  speak  humbly  and  under  correction;  it 
may  have  been  intended  for  a  battle-field  or  a  surgical 
operation.  It  is  a  medley  of  arms  and  legs,  flowering, 
so  to  speak,  from  a  single  torso.  No  head  was  visible. 
It  is  the  principle  of  the  cinematograph  applied  to  sculp- 
ture." "  Futurism,"  says  an  English  journal,  "  is  nothing 
but  a  Latin  Quarter  escapade.  But  it  is  none  the  less  a 
symptom  of  the  age.  ...  It  is  the  cult  of  violence  for 
its  own  sake.  It  finds  a  motor  car  more  beautiful  than 
the  Victory  of  Samothrace.  ...  It  is  the  art  of  an  age 
which  is  turning  to  irrationalism  in  politics  as  in  meta- 
physics." I  remember  examining,  a  few  years  ago,  a 
pretentious  Italian  periodical  devoted  to  Futurism.  Its 
battle-cry  was  "  Down  with  everything! "  It  would  be 
satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  the  overthrow  of  all  existing 
institutions  and  the  creation  of  a  brand-new  society  and 
art.  Especially  were  museums  and  libraries  to  be  con- 
signed to  utter  destruction.  The  published  specimens  of 
the  new  art,  which  thus  modestly  offers  itself  as  more  than 
a  substitute  for  all  that  has  been,  make  one  quite  content 
to  die  before  the  Futurist  future  dawns. 

Of  the  Cubists  an  ordinarily  sedate  critic  has  this  to 
say:  "  In  this  Autumn  Salon,  the  snobbery  of  a  few  good 
souls  has  been  pleased  to  group  morose  and  maniac  geom- 
eters with  delirious  dyers,  crazily  covering  their  defense- 
less canvases  with  color  puddles  and  diagrams  which  you 
would  say  had  been  traced  by  some  demented  Bouvard  and 
Pecuchet.  One  of  the  most  unformed  daubs  of  this  Salon 
is  dedicated:  'To  mariners,  travelers,  and  mountebanks.' 
Taking  into  account  the  foreigners,  cranks,  and  humbugs 


104  OLD 

who  are  the  main  originality  of  this  Salon  —  in  which 
'  French  '  taste  was  to  be  renewed  —  we  wonder  the  organ- 
izing committee  did  not  choose  this  '  symbolic  and  syn- 
thetic '  picture  for  its  poster."  Here  is  a  description  of 
a  picture  named  "  Mountaineers  Attacked  by  Bears,"  and 
dated  "  Annecy  1911 — Paris  1912":  "  If  I  guess  the 
rebus  aright,  then  you  must  make  out  in  this  picture's 
tangle  not  only  the  episode  of  its  title,  but  the  route  from 
Annecy  to  Paris,  railway  and  bridges,  telegraph  wires, 
and  the  compartment  in  which  the  painter  sat  during  his 
journey,  and  the  house  in  which  he  lives,  as  well  as  the 
mountain  site  where  the  wicked  bears  attacked  the  poor 
travelers  —  and  the  gun  they  used  for  their  defense.  Of 
bears  and  mountaineers,  of  road  and  landscape,  only  un- 
formed morsels  and  scattered  bits,  thrown  and  cut  ab"out 
at  random,  remain,  so  that  the  mother  bear  herself  would 
no  more  recognize  her  little  ones  than  her  victims." 

Concerning  Post-Impressionism  an  expert  tells  us:  "  The 
essence  of  Post-Impressionism  is  to  distrust  or  to  scorn 
all  tradition,  and  the  diligence  with  which  this  distrust  or 
scorn  is  being  expressed  by  faithful  adherence  to  a  new 
tradition  makes  one  wonder  if  the  attraction  may  not  be, 
not  the  principles  of  the  school,  but  the  short  cut  it  seems 
to  offer  to  art."  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  many  of  the 
senseless  fads  in  all  branches  of  mental  activity  are  due, 
in  their  inception,  to  the  over-abundance  of  respectable 
mediocrity,  an  abundance  which  leaves  little  chance  of 
recognition  to  the  man  of  unbounded  ambition  but  mod- 
erate endowments,  unless  he  can  invent  some  glaring  extrav- 
agance to  make  himself  conspicuous.  But  his  trumpeting 
would  avail  nothing,  were  it  not  for  the  dense  ignorance  of 
his  public.  Lack  of  knowledge  means  lack  of  judgment, 
and  lack  of  judgment  feeds  the  pretender.  It  is  easier  to 


THE  DARK  AGES  105 

make  a  big  stench  than  a  sweet  fragrance;  and  the  fouler 
the  odor,  the  more  inclined  are  the  incompetent  to  sniff 
rapturously  and  ejaculate:  "  How  strong! "  Listen  to 
Frederic  Harrison  on  The  Cult  of  the  Foul:  "  The  new 
craze  under  which  we  are  now  suffering  is  the  Cult  of  the 
Foul,  or  to  put  it  in  Greek,  it  may  be  dubbed  Aischro- 
latreia  —  worship  or  admiration  of  the  Ugly,  the  Nasty,  the 
Brutal.  Poetry,  Romance,  Drama,  Painting,  Sculpture, 
Music,  Manners,  even  Dress,  are  now  recast  to  suit  popular 
taste  by  adopting  forms  which  hitherto  have  been  regarded 
as  unpleasing,  gross,  or  actually  loathsome.  To  be  refined 
is  to  be  '  goody-goody  ' ;  gutter  slang  is  '  so  actual ' ;  if  a 
ruffian  tramp  knifes  his  pal,  it  is  '  so  strong ' ;  and  if  on 
the  stage  his  ragged  paramour  bites  off  a  rival's  ear,  the 
halfpenny  press  screams  with  delight.  Painters  are  warned 
against  anything  *  pretty/  so  they  dab  on  bright  tints  to 
look  like  a  linoleum  pattern,  or  they  go  for  subjects  to  a 
thieves'  kitchen.  The  one  aim  in  life,  as  in  Art,  is  to  shock 
one's  grandmother." 

Does  all  this  signify  that  we  are  more  vicious,  more 
depraved  than  our  fathers  ?  Are  we  witnessing  a  violent 
reaction  against  accepted  canons  of  decency  in  life  ?  I  do 
not  think  so.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  the  general 
moral  conduct  of  the  community  is  worse  than  it  has  been 
before.  If  art,  letters,  dress  are  more  indecent,  it  simply 
means  that  we  are  more  ignorant.  By  our  neglect  of  the 
past  we  have  cut  ourselves  off  from  standards  of  all  kinds, 
and  hence,  like  the  new-born  moth,  are  attracted  by  the 
first  glare.  Dante  had  a  word  to  say  on  this  theme,  many 
centuries  ago:  "  Just  as  the  man  who  has  lost  the  sight  of 
his  bodily  eyes  has  to  depend  on  others  for  the  distinction 
of  good  and  bad,  so  he  who  possesses  not  the  light  .of  dis- 
crimination always  follows  after  the  shout,  be  it  true  or 


106  OLD  AND  NEW 

false.  .  .  .  Thus  these  blind  people,  who  are  well-nigh 
countless,  resting  their  hands  on  the  shoulders  of  lying 
guides,  fall  into  the  ditch,  from  which  they  cannot  escape. 
It  is  especially  men  of  the  people  who  are  bereft  of  the 
light  of  judgment,  because,  taken  up  from  the  beginning 
of  their  life  with  some  trade,  they  are  obliged  so  to  con- 
centrate their  minds  on  it  that  they  think  of  naught  else. 
And  inasmuch  as  the  habit  of  any  virtue,  moral  or  intel- 
lectual, cannot  be  assumed  at  once,  but  must  be  acquired 
by  practice,  and  they  practise  nothing  but  their  handicraft 
and  bestow  no  care  on  other  things,  it  is  impossible  for 
them  to  have  judgment.  .  .  .  They  should  be  called  sheep, 
not  men.  For  if  one  sheep  should  throw  itself  over  a  high 
cliff,  all  the  others  would  go  after  it."  . 

This  is  a  passage  to  be  meditated  by  our  professional 
educators.  There  was  a  time  when  schools  attempted,  at 
least,  to  cultivate  discrimination  and  to  furnish  the  ma- 
terial on  which  selection  can  be  founded;  but  in  these  days 
of  "  vocational  training,"  when  pupils  are  encouraged  "  to 
practise  nothing  but  their  handicraft,"  it  is,  in  Dante's 
words,  "  impossible  for  them  to  have  judgment."  And  it 
is  inevitable  that  in  their  blindness  they  should  follow  false 
guides;  for  the  loudest  bellow  is  sure  to  issue  from  the 
windiest  prophet,  the  biggest  blaze  from  those  luminaries 
that  would  rather  be  flashlights,  and  dazzle  for  one  instant, 
than  gleam  as  modest  but  permanent  stars  in  the  sky. 
"  They  that  be  wise,"  says  a  once  popular  book,  "  shall 
shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament;  and  they  that 
turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever." 
But  none  of  this  for  our  Futurists,  Post-Futurists,  and  Neo's 
of  every  description.  They  have  all  taken  as  their  watch- 
word the  motto  of  the  melancholy  jockey  in  The  Arcadians: 
A  short  life  and  a  gay  one! 


THE  DARK  AGES  107 

One  is  tempted  to  say  that  the  motto  of  their  disciples 
is  that  phrase  of  Tertullian's:  "  Credo  quia  absurdum." 
But  that  would  not  be  quite  just.  They  do  not  believe 
in  folly  (as  Tertullian,  for  a  quite  different  reason,  did 
hi  wisdom)  because  it  is  absurd,  but  because  they  do  not 
know  how  absurd  it  is,  and  because  folly  has  a  louder 
voice  than  common  sense.  Just  as,  in  a  crowded  street 
on  a  rainy  day,  every  wayfarer  tries  to  lift  his  umbrella 
above  all  the  others,  so  every  preacher  today  is  trying  to 
raise  his  utterance  to  a  higher  pitch  than  all  his  competi- 
tors. Only  by  surpassing  shrillness  of  exaggeration  can 
we  get  a  hearing.  We  all  feel  it  —  the  politician  on  the 
stump,  the  clergyman  hi  the  pulpit,  the  professor  in  the 
classroom  —  even  the  president  of  a  learned  society  de- 
livering his  presidential  address:  and  we  all  yield  more  or 
less  to  the  temptation.  If  we  do  not,  we  are  consigned  to 
back  seats  as  "  mere  teachers,"  and  get  no  more  attention 
than  an  organ-grinder  playing  Trovatore. 

By  this  time  it  may  have  occurred  to  some  of  you  that 
the  Dark  Age  I  am  discussing  is  not  the  period  extending 
from  the  fifth  to  the  eleventh  century,  but  a  much  nearer 
one.  I  suggest,  indeed,  that  we  alter  the  Century  defini- 
tion to  something  like  this:  "  The  dark  ages,  an  epoch  in 
the  world's  history,  beginning  with  or  shortly  after  the 
French  Revolution,  marked  by  a  general  extension  and 
cheapening  of  education  resulting  in  a  vast  increase  of 
self-confident  ignorance.  It  was  induced  by  the  gradual 
triumph  of  democracy,  and  will  last  until  the  masses,  now 
become  arbiters  of  taste  and  science,  shall  have  been  raised 
to  the  level  formerly  occupied  by  the  privileged  classes." 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  aggregate  of  knowledge, 
at  the  present  day,  is  greater  than  ever  before;  but  it  is 
equally  true  that  the  large  shareholders  in  this  knowledge 


108  OLD  AND  NEW 

are  no  longer  in  control.  Leadership  has  been  assumed 
by  the  untrained  host,  which  is  troubled  by  no  doubt  con- 
cerning its  competence  and  therefore  feels  no  inclination 
to  improve  its  judgment.  The  ignorance  characteristic 
of  our  Dark  Age  is  a  supremely  self-satisfied  ignorance. 
Ours  is,  I  think,  the  first  period  in  human  history  to  belie 
Aristotle's  saying,  "  All  men  naturally  desire  to  know." 
Never  before  were  conditions  so  favorable  to  the  easy 
diffusion  of  a  false  semblance  of  information.  Cheap 
magazines,  Sunday  supplements,  moving  pictures  have 
taken  the  place  of  books.  Quickly  scanned  and  quickly 
forgotten,  they  leave  in  the  mind  nothing  but  the  illusion 
of  knowledge.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  number  of  persons  who  have  received  some  school- 
ing is  more  considerable  than  in  any  previous  century; 
but  this  admission  must  be  accompanied  by  the  corollary 
that  the  schooling  is  proportionately  ineffective.  The 
more  widely  education  has  been  diffused,  the  thinner  it  has 
been  spread.  We  have  now  reached  a  stage  where  it  seems 
to  be  on  the  verge  of  reverting  to  the  old  system  of  appren- 
ticeship to  a  trade.  All  this  is  natural  and  inevitable. 
It  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  democracy  should  ever 
relinquish  its  hold.  The  civilized  world  is  committed  to 
the  principle  of  majority  rule,  believing  that  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  many  results  in  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest 
number.  The  masses  must  come  into  their  inheritance, 
even  if  that  heritage,  in  their  unskilled  hands,  bear  for  a 
long  time  but  little  fruit. 

In  the  early  stages  of  the  leveling  process,  the  tendency 
was  to  lift  the  plebs  up  toward  the  mental  condition  of 
the  patricians.  Little  by  little,  however,  the  power  of 
inertia  has  reversed  the  movement,  and  now  equalization 
has  come  to  mean  the  lowering  of  the  brahmin  to  the  dead 


THE  DARK  AGES  109 

level  of  the  intellectual  pariah.  It  is  of  this  "  downward 
revision  "  of  education  that  I  am  complaining,  not  of  the 
great  democratic  evolution  of  which  it  is  an  unfortunate 
by-product.  We  are  confronted  by  a  definite  evil,  which 
can  and  must  be  corrected;  otherwise  it  would  be  useless 
to  complain  at  all.  How  frequently  do  we  hear  that  the 
high  school  diploma,  and  even  the  college  degree,  should 
be  "  within  the  reach  of  every  American  boy!  "  And  the 
strongest  tendency  in  our  education  today  is  to  put  it  there. 
When  this  dream  shall  have  been  realized,  the  result  will 
evidently  be  that  the  degree  will  be  worth  nothing  to  any- 
body. The  Spaniards  have  a  saying  that  all  Basques  are 
noble;  so  every  American,  it  would  seem,  should  be  ex 
qfficio  a  Bachelor  of  Arts.  I  have  often  thought  that  the 
only  way  to  satisfy  the  popular  demand  would  be  to  confer 
the  A.B.  on  every  child  at  its  birth.  But  we  can  never 
make  a  man  a  scholar  by  calling  him  one.  If  democracy 
is  to  be  a  success  (as  we  all  hope  and  believe),  that  end 
must  be  reached  not  by  degrading  education  to  the  present 
taste  of  the  lowest  part  of  the  demos,  but  by  lifting  the 
demos  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  value  of  learning. 

This  all-important  task  has  fallen  of  late  into  poor  hands. 
The  principal  of  a  big  high  school  was  discussing  with  me, 
not  long  ago,  the  wholesale  migration  of  the  better  class  of 
pupils  from  public  to  private  establishments.  "  Parents," 
he  said,  "  are  discovering  that  their  children  are  getting 
next  to  nothing  in  the  public  school.  Why  is  it  ?  When 
I  compare  the  men  who  taught  me,  and  taught  me  well, 
with  the  present  teachers,  who  can  hardly  be  said  to  teach 
anybody  anything,  I  am  puzzled  to  account  for  the  differ- 
ence. The  older  men  were  really  no  better  scholars  than 
the  new  ones,  and  worked  no  harder.  The  only  explana- 
tion I  can  offer  is  that  the  earlier  generation  knew  nothing 


1 10  OLD  AND  NEW 

of  pedagogy."  What  he  rashly  spoke,  many  masters  are 
thinking.  However,  it  seems  to  me  that  we  must,  in 
justice,  make  a  distinction  between  pedagogy  and  pseudo- 
pedagogy.  The  former  exists,  although  the  latter  is  so  much 
more  in  evidence  that  the  name  "  educator,"  for  many 
intelligent  people,  has  become  a  term  of  opprobrium. 
While  the  genuinely  serious  student  of  education  is  still 
groping,  trying  to  find  a  spot  on  which  to  lay  the  founda- 
tions of  a  science,  a  host  of  pseudo-educators,  too  unin- 
structed  to  know  any  better,  are  loudly  proclaiming  them- 
selves sole  possessors  of  the  whole  secret  of  the  art  of 
teaching.  An  easy  career  has  been  opened  to  young  men 
not  overburdened  with  wit  or  learning.  Having  collected 
some  information  about  school  administration  and  the 
history  of  pedagogical  speculation,  a  set  of  arbitrary  form- 
ulas, some  bits  of  dubious  psychology,  and,  above  all,  an 
imposing  technical  vocabulary,  they  are  accepted  as 
prophets  by  an  equally  ignorant  public,  and  given  control 
of  our  schools.  A  specialist  writes  in  The  Forum:  "  For 
a  decade  or  two  we  have  taught  theories  rather  than  chil- 
dren, and  the  result  is  that  the  children  have  scarcely  been 
educated." 

Even  worse  than  empty  theorizing  is  the  disposition  to 
cater  to  the  native  indolence  of  the  pupil  and  the  foolish 
indulgences  of  the  parent.  Listen  to  the  words  of  the  new 
president  of  Amherst  College,  as  reported  by  the  press: 
"  The  boy  chooses  on  some  special  line  —  the  line  of  voca- 
tion, the  line  of  '  snaps/  the  line  of  a  certain  profession  or 
the  days  that  will  let  the  student  get  out  of  town.  What 
do  you  get  ?  Any  sort  of  training  ?  None  at  all.  ... 
The  old  classical  curriculum  believed  that  if  you  take 
certain  studies  and  work  them  through  you'd  get  out  of 
them  the  deepest  things  of  human  experience."  Alas!  what 


THE  DARK  AGES  III 

does  the  typical  boy  or  the  typical  parent  or  the  typical 
educator  care  for  "  the  deepest  things  of  human  experi- 
ence ?  "  The  phrase  has  an  unpleasant  suggestion  of  the 
difficult  and  the  unpractical,  and  to  call  a  study  "  un- 
practical "  is  to  damn  it  to  the  "  lowest  hell."  What  we 
term  "  vocational  training,"  being  the  most  "  practical " 
thing  of  all  and  offering  no  considerable  difficulty  to  the 
pupil  (much  of  it  being,  in  fact,  hi  the  nature  of  play), 
is  now  first  in  favor.  It  is  surely  an  excellent  thing  hi  its 
place  —  as  a  supplement  to  education  or  as  an  apprentice- 
ship for  those  who  must  remain  uneducated.  I  believe  it 
is  destined  to  render  great  service.  But  let  us  not  make 
the  mistake  of  calling  it  "  education."  It  should  prepare 
a  boy  to  succeed  in  his  business;  probably  it  will,  when  it 
is  better  developed.  But  it  affords  no  more  education  than 
is  to  be  derived  from  the  business  itself.  When  we  say 
that  "  life  is  a  school,"  we  are  conscious  that  our  phrase 
is  a  figure  of  speech:  "  vocational  education  "  is  another. 
Perhaps  the  worst  feature  of  it  is  that  "  vocational "  sub- 
jects are  so  apt  to  be  chosen,  not  from  vocation,  not  with 
any  intention  of  preparing  for  a  career,  but  merely  for  the 
purpose  of  avoiding  real  study. 

The  confusion  arising  from  a  new  conception  of  the 
functions  of  the  state  and  the  school,  and  from  the  neces- 
sity of  providing  some  kind  of  training  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  all,  has  given  currency  to  certain  fallacies,  which 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  better  informed  members  of  society 
to  meet  and  combat.  First  of  all,  let  us  ask  ourselves  what 
should  be  the  purpose  of  education  in  a  democracy.  Should 
it  be  solely  to  fit  men  and  women  to  perform  efficiently 
their  daily  economic  task?  That  is,  of  course,  an  im- 
poitant  function,  but  it  cannot  be  all.  Otherwise  progress 
would  become  impossible  as  far  as  schooling  can  make  it 


112  OLD  AND  NEW 

so,  and  the  life  of  man  would  hardly  differ  from  that  of  a 
horse.  If  the  only  object  of  life  is  to  stay  alive,  of  what 
use  is  it  to  live  at  all  ?  The  ideal  of  economic  efficiency 
is  best  realized  by  a  machine.  But  the  individuals  we 
have  to  deal  with  are  not  machines:  they  are  human  beings 
of  almost  infinite  capacities,  destined  to  be  citizens  and 
parents.  They  must  be  capable  of  living  the  life  of  the 
spirit,  of  appreciating  the  good  things  in  nature,  hi  con- 
duct, and  in  art;  they  must  be  able  to  cope  intelligently 
with  weighty  problems  of  public  policy;  they  must  leave 
behind  them  descendants  who  shall  be  more,  rather  than 
less,  competent  than  themselves.  The  higher  we  rise  in 
the  scale  of  development,  the  less  conspicuous  the  purely 
economic  aspect  of  the  individual  becomes. 

"  Let  us  cut  loose  from  the  past,"  is  another  favorite 
cry,  "  and  devote  ourselves  to  the  practical  issues  of  the  day ! 
The  past  is  dead.  We  will  turn  our  backs  upon  it,  and 
give  ourselves  to  the  living  present."  How  familiar  these 
words  have  become  in  the  public  press  and  in  college 
papers,  and  in  assemblies  of  educators!  Anything  that 
bears  the  label  of  actuality  attracts  the  throng,  whether 
it  be  on  the  book-shelf  or  on  the  stage,  in  the  public  lecture- 
hall  or  in  the  academic  classroom.  College  courses  deal- 
ing with  supposedly  practical  and  contemporary  things  are 
as  crowded  as  those  which  reveal  the  treasures  of  the  past 
are  deserted.  Significant  of  this  mood  is  the  frequency 
with  which  we  see  on  a  theater  program  the  notice:  "  Time 
—  the  Present."  "  Only  the  present  is  real,"  say  the 
modernists.  On  the  contrary,  say  I,  nothing  is  more  un- 
real, more  elusive,  more  fictitious.  The  time  that  was 
present  when  I  began  this  sentence  is  now  gone  by.  The 
present  is  an  illusion:  it  is  a  perpetually  shifting  mathe- 
matical line  dividing  the  future  of  which  (humanly  speak- 


THE  DARK  AGES  113 

ing)  we  know  nothing,  from  the  past,  of  which  we  know 
much. 

This  clamor  for  the  present  resolves  itself,  then,  into  a 
demand  for  the  recent  past.  But  where  shall  we  find  the 
demarcation  between  the  recent  past  and  the  more  remote  ? 
At  what  period  of  man's  existence  has  there  been  a  break 
in  the  continuity  of  his  history  ?  Is  there  a  date  since 
which  human  experience  has  had  no  connection  with  that 
which  preceded  ?  Search  as  we  may,  we  shall  discover 
nothing  but  an  endless  chain.  Today's  thoughts  and  hap- 
penings can  be  understood  only  in  the  light  of  yesterday's, 
and  those  only  through  their  relation  to  the  events  of  the 
day  before.  All  the  knowledge  we  possess,  save  in  abstract 
matters  outside  the  confines  of  tune,  is  of  the  past,  and  the 
further  back  we  can  project  our  vision,  the  more  compre- 
hensive, the  more  thorough,  the  more  efficient  is  that  knowl- 
edge. The  more  efficient;  and  the  more  practical.  For 
our  only  guide  in  affairs  public  and  private  is  comparison 
with  bygone  things.  What  men  shall  do  is  determined  by 
what  men  have  done;  what  men  are  to  be  is  revealed  by 
what  men  have  been.  Everyone  agrees  that  among  all 
subjects  of  study  none  is  more  essential  nor  more  interest- 
ing than  human  nature. 

The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man 

is  as  familiar  a  quotation  as  ever.  And  where  is  man 
better  to  be  studied  than  in  his  records  ?  Just  compare  — 
in  number,  in  variety,  in  significance  —  the  people  whom 
you  know  in  the  flesh  with  those  you  know  through  books. 
"  The  reading  of  all  good  books,"  says  Descartes,  "  is  like 
a  conversation  with  the  best  people  of  bygone  centuries." 

Let  me  quote  a  paragraph  from  a  contributor  to  one  of 
our  leading  journals:  "  Universities  are  beginning  to  see 


H4  OLD  AND  NEW 

that  theoretical,  or  absolute,  truth  —  the  sort  upon  which 
ideals  are  founded  —  is  difficult  to  deduce  from  a  narrow 
study  of  actual,  contemporary  life.  Existence  examined 
at  close  range  means  loss  of  perspective.  .  .  .  Not  only 
do  young  men  find  it  hard  to  project  themselves  back  of 
the  present,  but  equally  hard  to  pursue  any  line  of  thought 
which  has  no  practical  bearings."  Why  is  it  that  the 
study  of  the  past  seems  irksome  to  the  new  generation  ? 
It  is  partly  because  such  study  requires  concentration  and 
judgment.  But  a  more  potent  reason  is  to  be  found  in  a 
false  view  of  life,  due  to  a  shallow  interpretation  of  social- 
ism —  an  idea  that  humanity  is  about  to  take  a  fresh  start, 
unhampered  by  all  the  influences  that  have  made  it. 
Progress  is  possible  only  through  utilization  of  experience. 
A  child  with  no  parents  or  other  elders  to  direct  it  would 
be  an  idiot.  If  each  individual  had  not  profited  by  the 
successes  and  failures  of  his  predecessors,  we  should  still 
be  in  a  state  of  primeval  protoplasm.  The  present  genera- 
tion calls  itself  practical.  But  think  of  the  waste  of  effort 
that  even  partial  ignorance  of  the  past  entails!  We  must 
compute  not  only  the  trials  and  losses  that  might  have 
been  avoided  by  knowledge  of  what  others  have  done,  but 
also  the  labor  spent  hi  duplication,  hi  learning  lessons  and 
working  out  results  long  since  accessible  to  the  world. 

Another  prevalent  fallacy,  which  has  found  favor  even 
in  high  quarters,  is  the  belief  that  for  the  training  of  the 
young  one  subject  is  just  as  good  as  another.  This  is 
surely,  on  the  face  of  it,  an  amazing  doctrine  to  promul- 
gate: it  runs  counter  to  all  tradition  and,  as  far  as  I  am 
aware,  to  all  contemporary  experience.  One  would  think 
the  burden  of  proof  should  rest  on  its  confessors.  Yet 
they  have  offered  not  a  shred  of  evidence  —  nothing  but 
bald  assertion.  And  on  the  basis  of  this  empty  vocifera- 


THE  DARK  AGES  115 

tion  school  programs  and  college  admission  requirements 
are  overturned.  Perhaps  our  age  has  furnished  no  better 
example  than  this  of  its  sheeplike  sequacity.  We,  here 
present,  are  nearly  all  of  us  teachers,  and  as  competent 
as  anybody  to  testify  in  this  case;  and  I  venture  to  say 
there  is  not  one  among  us  who  has  not  observed,  in  students 
who  have  pursued  widely  different  studies,  a  correspond- 
ing difference  in  general  aptitude.  It  does  not  stand  to 
reason  that  algebra  should  develop  the  same  faculties  as 
freehand  drawing  or  Greek  the  same  as  blacksmithing. 
Probably  the  greatest  divergence  in  the  educational  value 
of  studies  is  due  to  the  varying  degree  to  which  they 
require  concentration,  judgment,  observation,  and  imagi- 
nation. Some  occupations  can  be  pursued  with  tolerable 
success  while  the  mind  is  wandering;  others,  like  arith- 
metic and  algebra,  demand  close  and  constant  attention. 
Some  can  be  carried  on  by  an  almost  mechanical  process; 
others,  like  Greek  and  Latin,  call  for  continual  reasoning 
and  the  application  of  general  principles  to  particular 
cases.  Some  exact  little  of  the  mind,  but  much  of  the  eye. 
Some,  restricted  to  practical  realities,  make  no  appeal  to 
the  aesthetic  sense;  others,  such  as  literature,  native  or 
foreign,  tend  to  develop  the  imagination  while  awaken- 
ing appreciation  of  the  beautiful.  This,  I  know,  is  old- 
fashioned  doctrine;  but  until  we  have  conclusive  evidence 
to  offset  our  own  observation  and  that  of  all  our  ancestors, 
we  shall  do  well  to  foster  the  studies  most  conducive  to 
the  habits  we  wish  to  cultivate. 

The  fallacy  just  denned  is  closely  related  to  another, 
which  it  has  been  used  to  support:  namely,  the  doctrine 
that  all  study  must  be  made  agreeable  to  the  student. 
More  and  more  the  difficult  subjects  have  been  replaced 
by  easier  ones,  and  these  have  been  made  easier  yet  by 


Il6  OLD  AND  NEW 

the  extraction  of  obstacles  and  the  invention  of  painless 
methods.  Grammarless  modern  languages,  delatinized 
Latin,  simplified  mathematics  omit  the  very  features  that 
make  study  valuable.  Predigested  foods  of  all  sorts  have 
almost  deprived  our  youth  of  the  power  to  use  their  own 
teeth.  Amusement  is  looked  for,  rather  than  instruction. 
"  Snap  "  courses  have,  indeed,  been  seriously  defended  on 
the  ground  that  even  though  they  teach  nothing  tangible, . 
they  confer  an  indefinable  something  that  is  better  than 
knowledge.  I  would  not  deny  that  contact  with  a  superior 
mind  may  serve  as  an  inspiration;  it  reveals  unsuspected 
possibilities  of  culture,  and  moves  the  responsive  lad  to 
emulation.  But  if  the  responsive  lad  does  not  follow  this 
impulse,  if  he  wilfully  neglects  a  recognized  opportunity, 
he  loses  more  than  he  gains.  He  has  begun  the  acquisition 
of  a  vicious  habit  which  will  make  it  harder  for  him,  the 
next  time,  to  obey  the  call  of  duty.  We  shall  not  be  far 
wrong  in  saying  that  a  student  who  puts  nothing  into  a 
course  gets  nothing  out  of  it;  and  what  he  gets,  in  educa- 
tion as  in  trade,  is  proportionate  to  what  he  gives.  We 
often  hear,  particularly  from  those  who  are  not  over- 
successful  in  imparting  information,  attractive  discourse 
about  "  building  character."  Character  is  built  by  effort 
from  within,  not  by  admired  but  unheeded  eloquence 
externally  applied.  We  are  every  now  and  then  called 
upon  to  admire  the  self-educated  man.  But  every  edu- 
cated man  is  self-educated.  Our  minds  as  well  as  our 
characters  are  shaped  by  what  we  do  ourselves,  not  by 
what  others  do  for  us.  The  chief  benefit  of  education  lies 
in  the  effort  it  demands.  If  school  is  to  be  a  preparation 
for  life,  it  must  train  the  child  for  the  performance  of 
the  duties  that  life  has  in  store  for  him;  it  must  develop 
in  him  the  habit  of  cheerfully  and  regularly  accomplish- 


THE  DARK  AGES  117 

ing  irksome  tasks.  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou 
eat  bread  "  is  the  law  of  life,  and  a  wholesome  law  it  is. 
"  The  joy  of  work  "  is  a  noble  phrase,  and  an  excellent 
maxim  if  properly  understood;  but  the  joy  of  work  must 
not  be  confounded  with  the  joy  of  self-indulgence.  In 
self-indulgence  the  joy  comes  first,  the  pleasure  is  mainly 
one  of  anticipation;  and  gloom  is  apt  to  follow  after. 
Work,  for  most  people,  is  self-denial;  and  in  self-denial 
the  conditions  are  reversed:  it  is  the  beginning  that  is 
painful,  and  joy  comes  with  the  fulfillment.  This  joy  may 
be  far  greater  than  that  of  self-indulgence,  but  it  is  remote 
from  the  chooser,  who  is  likely  to  see  only  the  preliminary 
pain.  It  is  natural  for  all  of  us  since  Adam's  fall  —  and 
particularly  for  the  inexperienced  —  to  choose  the  imme- 
diate pleasure;  and  this  innate  tendency  it  is  the  business 
of  education  to  counteract. 

"  We  do  not  value  Knowledge,  but  Power,"  shout  the 
educational  Cubists,  who  apparently  would  make  a  man 
foursquare  with  nothing  inside.  We  must  no  longer  teach 
a  lad  that  7x8=  56:  that  is  simply  knowledge.  Let 
him  be  aware  that  somewhere  in  the  library  there  is  a  book 
called  an  algebra,  geometry,  or  something  of  the  sort,  in 
which  such  tiresome  facts  are  tabulated:  that  is  Power. 
When  I  was  a  child,  we  used  to  write  in  our  copy-books, 
"  Knowledge  is  Power  ";  that  maxim  was  held  up  to  us 
as  the  fundamental  principle  of  education.  And  so  it  is! 
Furthermore,  it  holds  good  for  all  life,  not  for  school  alone. 
Knowledge  is  not  only  the  greatest  but  almost  the  only 
source  of  human  power.  What  makes  the  success  of  our 
captains  of  industry  ?  Clear,  full,  accurate  information 
concerning  the  industries  to  be  captained,  together  with 
sufficient  imagination  to  conceive  audacious  plans  for  cap- 
taining them.  The  same  combination  of  keen  imagination 


Il8  OLD  AND  NEW 

with  well-nigh  exhaustive  knowledge  in  many  fields  made 
Napoleon  great  among  generals  and  statesmen.  Among 
savages,  who  is  the  ruler  ?  The  Medicine-Man,  the  only 
one  who  knows.  I  have  been  told  that  even  among  prize- 
fighters the  best  is  he  who  knows  most  of  the  art  of  sparring. 
Of  course,  knowledge,  like  anything  else,  to  be  valuable 
must  be  ready  for  use.  We  hear,  in  fact,  a  great  deal 
of  lamentation  over  the  student  crammed  full  of  knowledge 
which  he  cannot  employ.  In  the  lack  of  a  living  specimen, 
let  us  assume  the  potential  existence  of  a  student  thus 
crammed.  We  may  go  so  far  as  to  admit  that  it  is  quite 
within  the  range  of  possibility  for  a  man  to  possess  knowl- 
edge for  which  he  will  never  have  any  occasion,  and  also 
knowledge  which  he  will  be  unable  to  utilize  when  a  suitable 
occasion  shall  present  itself.  On  the  other  hand,  one  thing 
is  certain:  a  man  who  does  not  possess  knowledge  cannot 
use  it  under  any  circumstances.  Our  only  chance  of  success 
lies  in  acquiring  knowledge  —  as  much  of  it  as  we  can  get  — 
and  keeping  it  well  dusted,  well  labeled,  well  classified. 
We  shall  never  gain  power  from  vague  discourse  about  un- 
known or  unassimilated  facts.  What  constitutes  power  ? 
To  a  certain  extent,  strength  of  will.  So  far  as  that  is  a 
product  of  education,  it  can  be  developed  only  by  the  sys- 
tematic overcoming  of  obstacles,  by  resolutely  doing  the 
things  that  lead  to  the  achievement  of  our  object,  whether 
we  like  them  or  not  Aside  from  will  force,  power  consists 
in  the  ability  to  make  swift  and  accurate  comparisons  and 
deductions.  But  this  is  manifestly  impossible,  if  we  do  not 
know  the  terms  to  be  compared  and  the  data  from  which 
inferences  are  to  be  drawn.  It  is  only  by  dealing  with 
definite  truths  that  judgment  can  be  trained. 

Now  to  retain  these  truths,  to  keep  them  clear  and 
correct,  what  we  need  above  all  is  memory.    And  memory 


THE  DARK  AGES  119 

(alas!)  is  even  more  discredited  than  knowledge.  It  is, 
indeed,  scarcely  ever  called  by  its  simple  name,  being 
customarily  cited,  in  alliterative  disparagement,  as  "  mere 
memory."  The  criticism  of  instruction  that  we  oftenest 
hear  nowadays  is  that  school  children  are  "  stuffed  with 
facts,"  to  the  detriment  of  Power.  I  should  like  to  know 
what  these  facts  are.  For  nearly  thirty  years  I  have 
been  vainly  trying  to  find  some  of  them.  The  conclusion 
has  been  forced  upon  me  that  this  denunciation  is  a  heri- 
tage from  a  more  primitive  age,  when  children  really  were 
taught  facts,  and  when  memory  was  not  left  in  an  embry- 
onic state.  The  truth  is  that  memory  and  imagination, 
the  two  most  important  human  faculties,  are  scarcely 
cultivated  at  all.  There  was  a  time  when  mnemonic  exer- 
cises were  in  vogue,  when  the  development  of  a  quick,  sure, 
retentive  memory  was  thought  to  be  one  of  the  principal 
duties  of  the  schoolmaster.  That  time  has  gone  by;  and 
the  disastrous  results  of  its  passing  are  everywhere  ap- 
parent. It  is  pitiful  to  see  the  agonies  that  the  ordinary 
college  student  has  to  suffer,  if  he  is  obliged  to  learn  any- 
thing outright.  It  is  amazing  to  see  how  readily  he  forgets 
the  things  which  he  is  told  and  which,  for  the  moment,  he 
apparently  understands.  What  is  the  use  of  all  our  endless 
lecturing,  of  our  long  assignments  of  "  outside  reading,"  if 
the  pupil's  mind  retains  nothing  but  confused  and  mainly 
erroneous  impressions  ?  Memory  is,  indeed,  the  very  basis 
of  all  knowledge,  and  therefore  of  nearly  all  human  power. 
The  main  difference  between  a  wise  man  and  a  fool  is  that 
the  one  remembers,  the  other  forgets.  And  memory,  unlike 
some  of  our  attributes,  depends  largely  upon  training  for 
its  efficiency. 

The  great  tragic  poet  Alfieri  has  described  his  experi- 
ence at  the  Academy  of  Turin  as  "  eight  years  of  unedu- 


120  OLD  AND  NEW 

cation."  "  Uneducation,"  a  natural  fruit  of  our  present 
pedagogical  theories,  is  perhaps  the  principal  cause  of  our 
intellectual  darkness.  Only  when  the  educator  shall  have 
been  educated,  the  air  cleared  of  noxious  fallacies,  and  a 
sound  and  virile  conception  of  learning  restored,  will  the 
reign  of  Humbug  come  to  an  end.  Not  until  then  will  light 
begin  to  dawn  on  our  Dark  Ages. 


MEN  go  about,  says  St.  Augustine,  to  wonder  at  seas  and 
waves  and  mountains  and  rivers  and  ocean  and  stars,  when 
they  might  find  so  much  more  that  is  worthy  of  study  in 
themselves.  Ofttimes  the  hunter  after  foreign  tongues  is 
only  half  conscious  of  his  native  language;  often  he  is  far 
more  interested  hi  the  sounds  and  idioms  of  French  or  Span- 
ish than  hi  those  which  fall  from  his  own  lips.  The  speech 
that  I  am  about  to  discuss  has  the  disadvantages  as  well  as 
the  advantage  of  familiarity.  Those  things  which  are  always 
about  us,  while  they  are  the  easiest  to  observe  with  ac- 
curacy, are  the  ones  that  least  arrest  our  attention.  Only 
by  comparison  with  things  more  remote  do  they  fully  show 
themselves  to  us.  The  moss-covered  bucket  of  our  child- 
hood, indelibly  stamped  though  it  be  on  the  memory,  is 
devoid  of  poetic  charm  —  indeed,  of  any  significance  — 
until  experience  contrasts  it  with  urban  plumbing. 

The  moss-covered  dialect  which  distant  linguistic  wan- 
derings have  revealed  to  me  is  my  own.  It  is  one  of  my 
earliest  possessions,  one  of  my  first  vehicles  of  expression. 
Every  cultivated  man  has  at  least  two  dialects.  When 
James  Russell  Lowell  returned  from  the  court  of  St.  James 
his  speech  was  unmistakably  British;  but  he  had  not  for- 
gotten the  ways  of  Biglow,  and  he  was  doubtless  master  of 
several  intermediate  fashions.  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  even  savages  make  some  distinction  between  a  cere- 
monious and  a  workaday  style.  The  son  of  an  African 


122  OLD  AND  NEW 

chief  recently  told  me  that  in  his  tribe,  whose  language  has 
never  been  reduced  to  writing,  there  were  certain  profes- 
sional rhetoricians,  orators  capable  of  holding  a  crowd  for 
hours  in  open-mouthed  admiration  by  their  polished  dic- 
tion. The  children  whom  as  a  small  child  I  knew  had  a 
grown-up  idiom  for  their  elders,  an  unconstrained  one  for 
their  comrades.  For  my  own  part,  though  essentially  a 
city  boy,  I  was  nearly  as  much  at  home  in  the  country, 
where  most  of  my  relatives  lived  and  where  I  spent  a  good 
deal  of  my  time.  I  spoke,  therefore,  three  dialects:  adult 
urban,  infantile  urban,  and  rural  —  the  last  acquired  not 
only  in  eastern,  central,  and  western  Massachusetts,  but 
also  in  New  Hampshire,  Maine,  and  Vermont.  Later  J. 
added  two  others  —  the  fashionable  Boston  style  then 
known  as  "  West  End  "  and  the  language  of  some  British 
playmates  who  were  my  companions  during  a  sojourn  hi 
Germany. 

When  we  speak  of  New  England  pronunciation,  we  gen- 
erally have  in  mind,  no  doubt,  the  country  rather  than  the 
city  usage,  the  former  having  remained  more  distinctively 
local,  the  latter  having  been  modified  by  race  mixture 
and  by  inter-urban  communication.  In  twentieth  century 
Boston,  the  bulk  of  the  population  is  of  Irish  descent  and 
keeps  to  some  extent  its  Irish  accent;  the  ordinary  Yan- 
kees use  a  mitigated  Yankee  speech  shorn  of  its  most  con- 
spicuous Yankeeisms;  the  upper  circles  and  those  who 
aspire  thereto  are  apt  to  favor  a  pronunciation  derived,  it 
would  seem,  from  that  which  prevailed  in  England  a  couple 
of  generations  ago.  Most  interesting,  of  course,  is  the  usage 
that  has  most  flavor  of  the  soil. 

In  one  respect  all  American  dialects  are  surprisingly  alike, 
and  no  less  surprisingly  different  from  the  speech  of  the 
mother  country;  I  mean  in  intonation.  Again  and  again, 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  123 

in  the  streets  of  a  foreign  city,  I  have  caught  from  a  pass- 
ing pair  a  little  fragment  of  an  English  phrase,  often  with- 
out distinguishing  the  words;  and  scarcely  ever  could  I 
doubt  whether  the  speaker  was  an  American  or  an  English- 
man. Aside  from  differences  in  the  quality  of  voice  (the 
British  being  generally  more  sonorous),  tone  sequences 
clearly  indicate  the  side  of  the  Atlantic  from  which  they 
come.  Our  utterance  is  slow  and  monotonous,  our  vari- 
ations in  pitch  are  of  small  compass,  we  are  greatly  ad- 
dicted to  very  slight  rising-falling-rising  inflections.  We 
seem  to  be  holding  ourselves  in.  The  Englishman,  on  the 
other  hand,  seems  to  be  singing  full-throated.  To  my  ear, 
the  British  intonations  are  today  the  most  beautiful  I  know 
hi  any  language.  I  say  "  today  "  because  they  have  changed 
notably  within  my  recollection.  They  must  have  been 
more  or  less  consciously  cultivated,  much  as  a  song-bird 
studies  its  tune.  All  highly  developed  forms  of  utterance 
are  studiously  acquired,  the  "  tough  "  jargon  of  the  East 
Side  no  less  than  the  dainty  discourse  of  the  Four  Hun- 
dred. Inasmuch  as  Canadian,  Australian,  and,  I  think, 
South  African  inflections  are  closer  to  ours  than  to  those 
of  England,  it  is  likely  that  we  represent  the  earlier  type, 
from  which  the  insular  Britons,  by  concerted  aesthetic 
endeavor,  have  departed.  Can  it  be  that  the  music  of  birds 
first  developed  in  similar  fashion  ? 

Among  Americans,  I  believe  we  New  Englanders,  though 
less  drawly  than  the  South,  are  fondest  of  the  double  cir- 
cumflex accent  with  a  compass  of  less  than  half  a  tone, 
which  we  often  use  at  the  end  of  a  sentence,  leaving  an 
impression  of  mental  reservation.  You  may  remember  the 
man  in  black,  who  seemed  to  be  as  fine  a  man  as  ever  Ar- 
temus  Ward  set  eyes  on,  and  who  accosted  that  genial 
showman  on  a  railway  train.  "  It's  a  fine  day,"  said  the 


124  OLD  AND  NEW 

stranger.  "  '  Middlin,'  ses  I,  not  wishin  to  commit  myself; 
'  it's  a  middlin  fine  day.' '  Our  American  utterance  in 
general  appears  to  be  characterized  by  an  unwillingness  to 
commit  ourselves.  Now,  Artemus  Ward  may  have  said 
either  "  middlin,"  with  a  falling-rising,  or  "  middlin',"  with 
rising-falling-rising  effect.  The  former  is  the  more  guarded; 
it  is  markedly  distrustful.  The  second  is  the  normal  Yankee 
inflection,  and  expresses  nothing  more  than  habitual  pre- 
caution against  the  reactions  of  a  malignant  and  ever- 
watchful  Providence. 

Intonations  deserve  more  study.  Although  they  form 
the  most  important  element  hi  the  acquisition  of  what  is 
called  "  a  good  accent,"  they  are  scarcely  ever  mentioned 
in  guides  to  pronunciation.  No  matter  how  correct  be 
one's  production  of  individual  units,  the  whole  thing  sounds 
bad  if  the  tune  is  wrong.  Inflections  can  best  be  learned 
by  echoing  phrase  after  phrase  as  it  leaves  the  teacher's 
mouth.  Hard  to  discuss  they  obviously  are,  because  we 
have  no  means  of  portraying  them.  Even  a  musical  nota- 
tion will  not  do,  their  intervals  being  different  from  those 
of  the  scale.  They  can  be  imitated  on  the  violin,  but  not 
on  the  piano.  Perhaps  their  notes  could  be  adjusted  to 
some  oriental  mode  that  recognizes  minute  intervals;  but 
these  modes,  I  believe,  are  not  written.  I  have  sometimes 
tried  to  fix  intonations  graphically  on  coordinate  paper  — 
that  is,  paper  ruled  into  little  squares.  Letting  the  height 
of  each  of  these  squares  stand  for  a  half-tone,  I  have  repre- 
sented the  constantly  gliding  pitch  of  speech  by  a  consecu- 
tive wavy  line  crossing  the  sheet  and  traversing  the  squares 
at  the  appropriate  places. 

The  difficulty  of  notation  exists  also,  though  by  no  means 
to  the  same  degree,  for  the  separate  sounds  of  language.  I 
can  pronounce  a  dialect  vowel  so  that  the  hearer  may  catch 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  125 

and  reproduce  it;  but  how  shall  I  write  it  ?  There  are,  to 
be  sure,  excellent  phonetic  alphabets;  none,  however,  can 
be  trusted  to  indicate  all  shades  of  difference;  nor  can  the 
general  reader  be  trusted  to  decipher  an  esoteric  script.  As 
to  our  ordinary  spelling,  it  is  hopeless,  at  least  as  far  as 
vowels  are  concerned.  Our  letters  are  like  wax  faces  whose 
features  have  been  so  rubbed  off  that  they  suggest  no  one 
person  more  than  another.  To  return  to  Artemus  Ward, 
it  may  be  recalled  that  he  could  give  to  one  of  his  waxwork 
figures  at  will  "  a  benevolent  or  a  fiendish  look."  Even  so 
our  overworked  letters,  expressing  nothing  in  particular, 
may  register  any  expression.  If  I  write  u,  who  shall  tell 
whether  I  mean  the  vowel  of  duty,  of  brute,  of  put,  of  but, 
of  curl  —  not  to  speak  of  the  noun  minute  ?  This  unfortu- 
nate type  is  like  Full  Private  James  in  one  of  Gilbert's  Bab 
Ballads: 

No  characteristic  trait  had  he 

Of  any  distinctive  kind. 

And  his  fellows  are  no  better.  I  suppose  the  archaisms 
that  encrust  us  must  be  sloughed  off  one  by  one.  We  have 
got  the  Arabic  numerals;  we  have  got  an  intelligible  method 
of  writing  music;  we  are  getting  the  metric  system;  some 
day  we  shall  invent  an  orthography.  I  believe  that  among 
my  various  reasons  for  disliking  the  present  English  spell- 
ing, the  strongest  of  all  is  an  aesthetic  one.  Adaptation  to 
purpose  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  beauty  in  useful 
things;  and  our  writing  is  about  as  well  adapted  to  repre- 
senting our  speech  as  a  flint  knife  is  adapted  to  shaving. 
The  hideous  clumsiness  of  our  spelling  exasperates  me  even 
more  than  its  inadequacy. 

What  are  some  of  the  things  we  should  like  to  represent  ? 
Let  us  consider  first  the  three  principal  diphthongs,  to  wit, 
the  combinations  ou  as  in  out,  oi  as  in  oil,  i  as  in  ice.  So 


126  OLD  AND  NEW 

great  is  the  mental  confusion  induced  by  English  orthog- 
raphy that  many  educated  persons,  even  some  teachers  of 
diction,  are  unaware  and  can  hardly  be  convinced  that  i 
is  as  much  a  diphthong  as  ou  and  oi.  Its  first  element  is 
generally  the  a  oi  father,  its  second  is  approximately  the  i 
of  pin;  but,  as  is  always  the  case  with  English  diphthongs, 
the  transition  is  gradual,  one  vowel  melting  into  the  other. 
Such  is  its  composition  in  the  standard  speech  of  most  of 
the  United  States  today,  although  some  speakers  here,  as 
in  England,  begin  it  with  the  a  oifat  rather  than  with  that 
oi  father.  In  Benjamin  Franklin's  time  the  first  part  was 
the  vowel  of  but,  and  this  pronunciation  was  recommended 
as  late  as  1840  by  Samuel  Willard  (the  author  of  the  Frank- 
lin Primer  and  Reader)  in  his  General  Class-Book,  published 
in  Greenfield,  Mass.  It  still  survives  sporadically,  oftenest 
after  a  p  or  a  b,  as  in  pine,  spider,  buy,  all  of  which  I  have 
heard.  However,  the  modern  pronunciation  was  pre- 
scribed in  1789  by  Noah  Webster.  In  Schuyler  Clark's 
American  Linguist,  issued  in  Providence  in  1830,  we  read 
that  the  word  mine  is  equivalent  to  ma  in  in  the  sentence 
"  is  ma  in  ?  "  Most  of  us  have  heard,  no  doubt,  from 
elderly  people,  a  pronunciation  of  such  words  as  kind,  sky, 
guide  with  a  y  consonant  interposed  between  the  k  or  g 
and  the  i:  kyind,  etc.  This  was  the  practice  of  James 
Freeman  Clarke;  it  was  also  that  of  my  father,  who,  how- 
ever, was  not  a  New  Englander.  It  was  fashionable  in  the 
latter  eighteenth  and  the  early  nineteenth  century,  though 
promptly  condemned  by  Webster. 

Oi  in  New  England,  as  elsewhere,  is  usually  made  up  of 
the  vowel  of  law  plus  that  of  in  —  loin.  Throughout  the 
eighteenth  century,  here  and  in  the  whole  English-speaking 
world,  oi  and  i  were  very  generally  confused,  both  being 
pronounced,  in  all  probability,  as  they  now  are  by  the  Irish. 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  127 

Lists  of  words  identical  in  sound  regularly  contained,  as 
late  as  1822,  such  pairs  as  boil  bile,  enjoin  engine,  foil  file, 
point  pint,  toil  tile.  Fraser's  Columbian  Monitor  in  1794 
drops  into  verse  on  the  subject,  as  follows: 

The  sound  of  o  i  custom  reconciles 

With  that  of  i  spoke  long:  as,  witness  toils. 

By  1795,  however,  Boston  had  taken  alarm,  as  appears 
from  the  Columbian  Grammar  of  Benjamin  Dearborn,  which 
condemns  "  bile  "  and  "  brile  "  as  "  improprieties."  The 
milder  Samuel  Willard  calls  "  ile  "  for  oil,  "  pint "  for 
point,  "  line  "  for  loin  "  very  old  fashioned."  They  still 
flourish,  nevertheless,  though  now  sunk  to  very  lowly 
estate,  among  Yankees  and  Englishmen  alike.  A  recent 
development  is  the  separation  of  oi  into  two  syllables, 
making  soil,  for  instance,  into  "  so  ill."  This  I  have  heard 
of  late  from  many  schoolchildren,  perhaps  in  an  exagger- 
ated reaction  against  "  sile." 

Ou  has  two  pronunciations,  according  as  the  first  element 
is  the  a  oi  father  or  the  a  oifat  —  "  hah-oose  "  or  "  ha-oose  "; 
the  former,  in  New  England,  is  urban,  the  latter  is  rural. 
This  is  not  the  case  everywhere:  in  Baltimore,  in  Phila- 
delphia, in  southern  England,  the  a-oo  type  has  no  sug- 
gestion of  rusticity.  A  variant  of  it  consists  in  the  insertion 
of  a  y  consonant  before  the  diphthong,  "  ka-oo  "  (cow)  be- 
coming "  kya-oo."  Webster  in  1789  tells  us  that  ou,  espe- 
cially after  p  and  c,  is  often  improperly  sounded  "  iou," 
as  "  kiow,"  "  piower,"  although  ground,  round,  etc.,  are 
pronounced  "  with  tolerable  propriety "  by  "  the  most 
awkward  countryman."  I  have  myself  observed  no  such 
distinction:  the  people  of  my  acquaintance  who  say 
"  ka-oo  "  or  "  kya-oo  "  say  also  "  gra-oond."  In  the 
times  of  Franklin  and  of  Webster,  the  proper  sound  of  ou 
appears  to  have  been  not  ah-oo  but  o-oo,  with  o  as  in  poet 


128  OLD  AND  NEW 

"  ro-oond"  and  not  "rah-oond."  My  father,  when 
reading  aloud,  said  "  ro-oond  ":  he  was  bred  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  I  conjecture  that  in  his  childhood  he  had  been 
corrected  for  saying  "  ra-oond."  Samuel  Willard  would 
have  us  pronounce  "  raw-oond."  "  Many  persons,"  he 
says,  "  give  to  the  o  in  this  diphthong  the  Italian  sound  of 
a  in  car:  and  what  is  unspeakably  worse,  many  others  give 
it  a  flat  sound,  as  in  care."  He  adds  careful  directions  for 
the  pronunciation  of  cow.  The  Biglow  Papers  show  regu- 
larly "  kya-oo  "  or  "  ka-oo."  Before  leaving  this  diphthong, 
I  may  note  that  one  sometimes  hears  nowadays  the  ou  of 
out  and  about  pronounced  u-oo,  with  u  as  in  but  —  which, 
unless  the  speaker  has  Southern  characteristics,  is  a  sign 
that  he  comes  from  Canada. 

We  shall  now  pass  to  the  so-called  "  long  vowels,"  a,  e, 
o,  oo,  as  in  bait,  beat,  boat,  boot.  In  reality,  these  sounds, 
in  New  England  as  in  Old  England,  are  not  pure  vowels; 
they  do  not  end  as  they  begin,  for  the  passage  in  the  mouth 
or  at  the  lips  is  narrowing  from  start  to  finish.  It  is  scarcely 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  standard  English  has  no  pure 
long  vowels:  we  apparently  cannot  keep  our  organs  still 
during  a  protracted  utterance.  Bait  begins  like  bet;  beet 
begins  like  bit;  boot  starts  its  vowel  like  that  of  put.  That 
is  why  it  is  so  hard  for  us  to  acquire  the  long  vowels  of 
other  languages.  This  breaking  of  the  vowel  is  not  very 
ancient.  In  the  eighteenth  and  the  early  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, people  said  bait,  beet,  boat,  boot  with  pure  vowels,  that 
of  bait  being  open  until  about  the  last  quarter  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  then  apparently  close,  the  others  being  close 
all  the  time.  The  earliest  mention  of  the  diphthongization 
I  have  been  able  to  find  is  by  our  friend  Samuel  Willard, 
who  declares  explicitly:  "  O  begins  with  a  sound,  which  is 
never  heard  alone,  except  in  the  New  England  pronunci- 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION          129 

ation  of  such  words,  as  whole,  home,  stone,  which  they  pro- 
nounce shorter  than  hole,  comb,  bone,"  and  ends  with  oo  as 
in  do;  the  a  of  cane  begins  with  the  e  of  men  and  ends  with 
the  e  of  me.  Pollen's  Practical  Grammar  of  the  German  Lan- 
guage, Boston,  1831,  informs  us  that  German  e  is  "  nearly 
like  a  in  fate,  yet  closer,  and  without  the  sound  of  an  e 
which  is  slightly  heard  at  the  end  of  a  long  a  in  English." 
We  may  assume  that  the  breaking  of  o  and  a,  and  probably 
of  e  and  oo,  was  completed  in  New  England  by  1820  or 
thereabouts.  In  e  and  oo  the  diphthongal  quality  is  less 
noticeable  than  in  o  and  a.  In  Old  England,  o  and  a  went 
on  developing,  with  a  final  result  of  ou  and  i  in  Cockney 
usage,  coat  becoming  "  cout "  (hi  rime  with  scout}  and 
lady  becoming  "  lydy."  Elegant  speech,  stopping  short  on 
the  way  to  "  cout,"  favored  a  form  that  begins  like  curt 
and  ends  like  coat.  This  latter  type  has  been  extensively 
copied  by  people  of  fashion  in  Boston  and  some  other  New 
England  cities.  Lady,  in  cultivated  circles,  has  never 
yielded  to  "  lydy."  The  vulgar  forms  "  lydy  "  and  "  py- 
per,"  however,  have  to  some  extent  invaded  the  vocabu- 
lary of  Boston  street  boys.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
the  rural  "  dreen  "  for  drain  is  registered  in  1795;  and 
that  in  1789  our  Yankee  ancestors  said  "  desate,"  "  con- 
sate,"  "  resate,"  for  conceit,  etc. 

When  one  of  these  vowels  is  followed  by  r ,  it  tends  to 
drop  down  in  the  scale,  especially  if  the  r  is  the  final  sound, 
as  in  pore,  or  stands  before  a  consonant,  as  in  port.  The 
effort  to  articulate  the  r  has  prevented  the  tongue  from 
reaching  the  height  required  for  the  clear  vowel.  In  words 
like  for,  short,  the  fall  occurred  centuries  ago;  here  the 
vowel  is  that  of  law.  In  pore,  port,  the  decline  is  more 
recent,  and  usage  still  varies  between  the  o  of  poet  and 
vowel  of  paw.  The  latter  has  prevailed  in  England,  where 


130  OLD  AND  NEW 

pore  is  now  "paw"  and  port  is  "pawt";  it  is  rapidly 
gaining  in  our  region,  where  "  po-a  "  and  "  po-ut "  are 
succumbing,  especially  in  cities,  to  "  paw-a  "  and  "  paw-ut." 
Our  southern  states  solved  the  difficulty  in  a  different  way, 
by  keeping  the  o  and  suppressing  the  r,  with  "  po  "  and 
"  pote  "  as  a  result.  The  e,  as  in  fear,  beard,  has  not  de- 
clined so  low;  it  has  usually  remained  at  the  stage  of  the 
i  in.  fit.  In  1789,  by  the  way,  Webster  condemned  "  beerd  " 
and  approved  "  baird  "  for  beard;  in  my  childhood  I  heard 
elderly  people  say  "  Blue-Baird."  In  England,  very  com- 
monly, a  curious  phenomenon  has  occurred:  the  accent 
has  been  shifted  from  the  main  vowel,  i,  to  the  obscure 
vowel  that  takes  the  place  of  the  r ,  so  that  fear,  fearing 
become  "  fyah,"  "  fyahring,"  "  fyah  "  being  similar  to 
German  ja  with  /  prefixed.  Our  Southerners  often  do 
nearly  the  same  thing,  pronouncing  here  as  "  hyuh  "  or*as 
"  yuh."  New  England  has  not  been  involved  hi  this  shift. 
As  for  a,  as  in  pare,  pared,  it  has  in  general  kept  the  value 
which  a  regularly  had  in  the  seventeenth  century,  namely, 
the  sound  of  a  in  pan,  or  something  very  near  it.  Some- 
times it  has,  instead,  the  eighteenth  century  value  of  a, 
which  is  that  of  e  in  pen.  In  this  matter  the  differences 
appear  to  be  individual  rather  than  geographic.  For  care, 
cards,  chair,  share  the  rustic  Yankee  in  1795  said  "  keer," 
"  keerds,"  "  cheer,"  "  sheer."  Passing  finally  to  oo,  as  in 
poor,  we  find  that  this  vowel  is  peculiarly  sensitive  to  the 
neighborhood  of  an  r.  First  it  drops  to  the  vowel  of  put, 
at  which  stage  it  remains  in  most  words  and  in  most  re- 
gions; but  it  easily  descends  further  to  o,  poor  becoming 
"  pore,"  which  in  the  South  is  clipped  to  "  po  ";  occasion- 
ally it  slips  down  to  aw,  and  poor,  pore,  paw  are  all  merged 
in  "  paw."  This  last  slip  is  pretty  common  in  England 
when  the  vowel  in  question  is  preceded  by  a  y  consonant; 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  131 

the  word  your  is  indeed  very  often  "  yaw-a  "  or  "  yaw  " 
even  in  New  England.  In  the  old  country  an  unwritten  y, 
as  in  pure,  furious,  produces  the  same  effect,  and  we  hear 
"  pyaw,"  "  fyawrious."  Sure,  which  once  began  with  sy 
and  not,  as  at  present,  with  sh,  often  turns  up  as  "  shore  " 
and  "  shaw."  "  Shore  "  for  sure  is  listed  by  Dearborn  in 
Boston  in  1795  as  an  "  impropriety." 

If  the  r  is  immediately  followed  by  a  vowel,  it  is  less 
effective  as  a  modifier.  Era,  houri  waver  between  the  close 
and  the  open,  the  sounds  of  eat,  hoot  on  the  one  hand  and 
those  of  it,  hook  on  the  other;  the  former  prevail  hi  America, 
including  New  England,  the  latter  in  the  mother  country. 
When  we  come  to  a  and  o,  as  in  vary  and  story,  the  differ- 
ence is  more  marked:  on  the  west  side  of  the  Atlantic  we 
generally  hear  "  vary,"  "  story,"  on  the  east  side  "  vaa-ry," 
"  staw-ry."  To  the  British  ear  our  pronunciation  of  Mary 
is  peculiarly  painful. 

Of  the  four  "  long  vowels  "  which  we  have  been  discuss- 
ing, two  are  in  some  cases  subject  to  abbreviation,  accom- 
panied by  a  relaxation  of  tongue  and  lips,  giving  an  opener 
sound:  these  are  oo  and  o,  the  two  that  are  made  in  the 
back  of  the  mouth.  Between  long  oo,  as  in  boot,  and  short 
oo,  as  in  hook,  the  demarcation  is  not  very  clear,  and  some 
words  are  continually  flitting  to  and  fro  across  the  frontier. 
The  short  vowel,  in  broom,  cooper,  hoof,  proof,  roof,  room, 
root,  soon,  soot,  etc.,  goes  back  to  the  eighteenth  century, 
but  probably  was  regarded  until  recently  as  a  vulgarism. 
Dearborn  in  1795  condemns  "  huff,  ruff,  spunfull,"  as  he 
spells  them.  I  think  that  in  all  the  instances  above  cited 
the  short  vowel  prevails  in  New  England.  Soot  of  course 
is  still  more  commonly  pronounced  "  sut,"  riming  with 
but.  Although  there  are  regional  preferences  concerning 
these  words,  it  is  impossible  to  trace  geographic  limits. 


132  OLD  AND  NEW 

The  shortening  of  o,  on  the  other  hand,  is  almost  wholly 
confined  to  New  England,  although  I  have  heard  suppose 
with  the  Yankee  short  o  from  the  lips  of  an  orator  from 
South  Carolina.  In  his  Dissertations  on  the  English  Lan- 
guage, 1789,  Noah  Webster  says:  "  0  is  sometimes  shortened 
in  common  parlance,  as  in  colt."  Hale,  in  his  English 
Spelling-Book,  Northampton,  1799,  observes:  "  The  short 
sound  of  o  is  found  in  too  few  words  to  make  a  distinct 
class:  they  are  home,  none,  stone,  whole,  and  their  com- 
pounds." We  should  now  remove  from  the  list  none,  which 
is  regularly  "  nun."  Dearborn's  "  Improprieties,"  1795, 
include  something  that  he  spells  "  hum."  I  have  already 
quoted  Willard's  reference  to  "  the  New  England  pronun- 
ciation of  such  words,  as  whole,  home,  stone,  which  they 
pronounce  shorter  than  hole,  comb,  bone."  Of  present  cul- 
tivated New  England  usage  it  may  be  said  that  some  fiky 
common  words  have  the  shortened  vowel,  while  many 
more  have  it  in  rustic  speech.  Why  it  should  appear  in 
some  words,  and  not  in  others  which  seem  to  offer  the  same 
conditions,  I  cannot  tell.  One  hears  it  in  bone,  stone,  but 
seldom  in  alone  and  never  in  groan,  moan,  tone.  It  is  well- 
nigh  universal  in  whole,  but  is  never  heard  in  coal,  hole, 
mole,  roll,  shoal,  soul,  toll;  goal  does  not  come  into  consider- 
ation, since  its  only  popular  form  is  "  gool  "  or  "  gools." 
The  most  extensive  category  is  probably  that  in  t:  boat, 
coat,  note,  throat,  wrote;  but  even  here  I  have  never  been 
able  to  locate  goat  or  float.  The  d  list  —  had,  road,  toad  — 
is  more  consistent.  I  think  that  even  hi  city  parlance  the 
short  vowel  predominates  in  both,  folks,  Holmes,  most,  only, 
Polk,  polka,  whole  and  its  derivatives.  Colonel  T.  W.  Hig- 
ginson  used  the  short  o  in  Holmes.  Whether  the  Autocrat 
himself  so  pronounced  his  name  I  have  never  heard.  There 
are  probably  differences  in  the  degree  of  prevalence  in  the 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  133 

several  states:  I  associate  boat  more  particularly  with 
Maine;  road,  stone,  toad  with  Massachusetts;  but  this 
may  be  accident.  Home  and  whole  are  general  favorites. 
Now,  what  is  the  vowel  under  consideration  ?  Is  it  simply 
an  o  cut  short  ?  Not  quite,  though  very  nearly;  it  has  a 
more  open  effect.  Our  coat  tends  toward  French  cotte;  but 
the  latter,  in  Paris,  is  nearer  to  my  pronunciation  of  curt, 
much  shortened.  The  sound,  to  describe  it  exactly,  is  the 
"  short  u  "  labialized.  Pronounce  hum  with  the  narrowed 
lip  aperture  of  roam,  and  you  get  New  England  home.  Thus 
but  may  be  turned  to  boat,  cut  to  coat,  hull  to  whole,  stun  to 
stone.  Dialect  writers,  having  no  better  way  of  indicating 
the  sound,  have  spelled  "  but,"  "  cut,"  "  hull,"  "  hum," 
"  stun,"  and  so  on;  and  outsiders  have  imagined  that  the 
vowel  was  really  u.  Actors  especially,  in  rural  drama,  have 
"  hummed  "  and  "  butted  "  and  "  ludded  "  in  a  way  I 
have  never  known  off  the  stage.  "  Hum  "  is,  however,  not 
entirely  mythical:  it  exists  in  some  regions  hi  Connecticut; 
and  I  am  told  that  it  may  be  found  in  Vermont,  although 
I  never  heard  it  there.  James  Russell  Lowell  once  told  me 
that  he  had  never  heard  it  at  all. 

The  other  long  vowels,  e  and  a,  are  seldom  shortened  in 
our  dialects.  "  Crick  "  for  creek  is,  of  course,  common 
everywhere.  The  past  participle  of  be  is  always  "  bin  "  or 
"  ben."  "  Nekked  "  for  naked  is  prevalent  in  New  England 
and  perhaps  elsewhere.  I  have  heard  "  sneck  "  for  snake 
in  Massachusetts.  Ate  is  still  generally  pronounced  "  et," 
but  perhaps  this  is  a  different  phenomenon. 

With  the  sound,  or  group  of  sounds,  called  "  long  u  "  we 
enter  upon  a  difficult  and  complicated  subject.  Let  us 
confine  ourselves,  for  the  present,  to  accented  syllables. 
Here  the  "  long  u  "  has  three  distinct  values,  which  we  may 
call  yoo,  ee-oo,  and  oo.  Of  these,  yoo  and  ee-oo  are  local  or 


134  OLD  AND 

individual  variants  of  the  same  type,  while  oo  is  a  substi- 
tute for  both.  As  far  as  Franklin's  usage  is  recorded  by 
himself,  we  find  that  he  said  "  fee-oo  "  for  few,  but  "noo," 
"  rool,"  "  troo  ";  after  n  and  r,  then,  he  used  the  oo  sub- 
stitute. Webster's  practice  was  quite  different.  According 
to  his  Dissertations,  "  long  u  "  invariably  had  one  and  the 
same  sound,  which  was  neither  oo  nor  a  diphthong,  but  "  a 
separate  vowel,  which  has  no  affinity  to  any  other  sound  in 
the  language,"  and  is  best  pronounced  by  countrymen  and 
children;  in  new,  he  declares,  no  e  is  heard,  except  hi  Vir- 
ginia, where  they  affect  to  say  "  nee-oo,"  "  fee-oo."  The 
Virginian,  it  is  to  be  noted,  unlike  Franklin,  treated  few  and 
new  alike.  What  Webster's  mysterious  vowel  was,  I  can- 
not say;  it  would  seem,  however,  that  in  his  Connecticut 
speech  something  like  the  old  y  (French  u  or  German  u) 
was  still  in  rural  use.  This  sound,  presumably  foreign  «to 
Franklin's  Boston  tongue,  was,  I  think,  tolerably  wide- 
spread among  New  England  rustics,  and  led  to  the  later 
confusion  of  oo  and  ee-oo,  as  exemplified  in  "  dooty  "  and 
"  skewl."  "  Grim-visaged  waw,"  writes  Lowell,  "  heth 
smeuthed  his  wrinkled  front,"  and  capers  "  To  the  lascivi- 
ous pleasin'  of  a  loot."  Perry,  of  Edinburgh,  calls  for 
"  long  u  "  —  whatever  that  may  mean  —  in  June,  luce, 
prune,  ruse,  spruce,  strew,  sure,  truce,  truth,  yew,  and  also, 
it  would  seem,  in  presume,  true.  Walker,  on  the  other  hand, 
distinguishes  tune,  "  tyoon,"  from  rude,  "  rood,"  for  which 
he  was  taken  to  task  by  Webster  in  1806.  It  seems  evident 
that  the  obscure  counsels  of  Webster  and  Perry  (whose 
Only  Sure  Guide  to  the  English  Tongue  was  early  and  fre- 
quently reprinted  hi  Worcester,  Mass.)  were  misunder- 
stood by  later  orthoepists  and  led  to  heroic  attempts  to 
pronounce  yoo  or  ee-oo  after  all  consonants,  but  especially 
after  dentals,  where  they  were  favored  also  by  Walker. 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  135 

The  resultant  confusion  perhaps  did  much  to  mix  up  oo 
and  ee-oo  in  the  rural  dialect.  This  mixing  is  already  evi- 
dent in  Jonathan  Ware's  representation  of  Vermont  speech 
in  1814,  where  "  dew  "  for  do  and  "  tew  "  for  two  appear 
beside  "  trooth,"  "  hooman,"  "  redoosing,"  "  obskoor," 
"  noomerator,"  "  dootee,"  "  dispooted,"  "  constitooshun." 
The  confusion  between  oo  and  ee-oo  was  probably  at  its 
height  about  1820.  At  present  the  usage  in  New  England 
is  as  follows.  At  the  beginning  of  a  word,  or  after  h,  we  say 
yoo:  as  in  union,  hue.  After  the  labials  (p,  b,  m),  the  denti- 
labials  (/,  v),  the  velar  consonants  (k,  g),  city  people  usually 
say  yoo,  country  people  ee-oo:  so  pew,  beauty,  muse;  few, 
view;  cue,  Gulick.  After  all  sorts  oi  dentals  (/,  d,  n,  th,  I,  s, 
z)  both  city  and  country  people  who  speak  according  to 
nature  say  oo,  while  those  who  speak  by  the  book  say  ee-oo, 
occasionally  yoo:  examples  are  tune,  due,  new,  thews,  lute, 
sue,  resume.  After  other  consonants  (r,  sh,  zh,  y,  also  / 
preceded  by  another  consonant)  oo  is  the  rule,  but  rustics 
often  use  ee-oo:  so  rule,  sure,  juice,  yew,  blue.  Survivals  of 
the  old  confusion  are  the  still  current  "  amoosin,"  "  pe- 
cooliar," and  "  lugoobrious."  There  used  to  be  a  popular 
song  called  "  Werry  Pecooliar,"  whose  unhappy  author  had 
been  "  a  great  thlave  "  to  the  "  mighty  god  Coopid."  On 
the  other  hand,  "  skewl  "  for  school,  and  "  dew  "  for  do, 
and  "  tew  "  for  to  or  two  may  still  be  heard  in  the  country. 
The  rural  fondness  for  ee-oo  is  not  "  pecooliar "  to  New 
England.  In  Miss  Burney's  Camilla  a  company  of  mis- 
cellaneous players  attempts  a  performance  of  Othello,  each 
actor  sticking  to  his  own  local  pronunciation;  and  the  one 
from  Norfolk  declaims:  "  The  Deuk  dew  greet  yew, 
General."  The  most  characteristic  feature  of  New  Eng- 
land usage  is  the  prevalence  of  oo  after  dentals,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  goes  back  as  far  as  Franklin.  "  Noo," 


136  OLD  AND  NEW 

"dooty,"  "stoodent,"  "loot,"  "  soo,"  "  prezoom  "  are 
constantly  heard  among  us,  even  from  expert  public 
speakers.  In  fact,  they  are  fairly  prevalent  throughout 
the  North.  Professor  Gildersleeve  once  gave  me  an  en- 
tertaining account  of  the  strange  linguistic  mixture  caused 
by  the  importation  of  "  noo "  pronunciations,  by  the 
Yankee  schoolmistress,  into  the  dialect  of  the  youthful 
negro,  who  nowadays  may  be  heard  uttering  such  anom- 
alies as  "  Ahz  gwahn  home  awn  Toozdy."  Sometimes  the 
y,  which  the  prudent  Yankee  prefers  to  omit,  has  surrep- 
titiously combined  with  the  /  or  d,  turning  tune  to  "  choon," 
duty  to  "  jooty."  These  pronunciations  are  described  by 
Webster,  in  1789,  as  common  but  undesirable;  they  are 
not  used  here  at  present,  except  by  the  Irish.  So  it  is  with 
"  shoot "  for  suit,  "  rezhoom  "  for  resume,  in  which  the  y 
has  combined  with  5  or  z. 

When  the  u  is  unstressed,  and  follows  an  accented  sylla- 
ble, the  combination  of  its  y  element  with  a  preceding  /,  d, 
s,  or  2  is  unchecked  by  any  sense  of  "  jooty,"  and  we  get 
"  nacher,"  "  verjer,"  "  ishoo,"  "  plezher,"  "  sichawashun," 
"  ejacate,"  the  oo  being  generally  reduced,  or  nearly  re- 
duced, to  the  status  of  a  neutral  vowel.  Inasmuch  as 
"  nacher  "  and  "  nachoor  "  are  expressly  condemned  by 
Perry  and  by  Webster,  these  pronunciations  must  have 
been  current  in  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century; 
how  much  earlier  they  existed,  I  do  not  know.  Walker 
advocates  "  feecher."  According  to  Samuel  Kirkham's 
English  Grammar,  published  in  the  first  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  d  in  educate,  grandeur,  verdure  is  to  be 
sounded  as./.  Samuel  Willard  informs  us  that  "  tu,  in  the 
syllable  following  the  accent,  has  a  sound  resembling  that 
of  chu,  as  in  nature,  virtuous,"  and  that  the  d  in  assiduous 
has  "  very  nearly  the  sound  of  y."  Beside  this  usage  there 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION    137 

has  existed  from  early  times  another,  which  entirely  sup- 
presses the  y.  In  1643  Richard  Hodges  published  in  Lon- 
don A  Special  help  to  orthographic,  wherein  we  find  commune 
pronounced  like  common,  ordure  like  order,  pasture  like 
pastor,  tenure  like  tenor,  venture  as  venter.  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin said  "  natteral."  While  Perry  condemns  "  nater," 
Isaiah  Thomas  hi  1785  (New  American  Spelling-Book, 
Worcester,  Mass.)  declares  that  century  is  pronounced  like 
sentry.  Presently  The  Young  Ladies'  and  Gentkmen's 
Spelling-Book  identifies  phonetically  capture  with  captor, 
culture  with  coulter,  feature  with  fetor,  gesture  vn.\h  jester. 
Jonathan  Ware's  Vermont  forms,  hi  1814,  betray  the  same 
confusion  that  they  showed  in  the  case  of  accented  u:  our 
common  mother  appears  as  "  naychoor,"  "  nacher,"  and 
"nater";  "  kreetyoor,"  "  figyur,"  and  "  vurtu  "  (i.  e., 
"  vurtew  ")  stand  side  by  side  with  "  vallooing,"  "  mis- 
fourtins,"  "  unokkoopied,"  "  kontinoos,"  "  sitooation," 
"  kontribbited,"  and,  in  another  category,  "  absoloot."  A 
little  later,  J.  A.  Cummings's  Pronouncing  Spelling-Book, 
printed  hi  Boston,  admits  no  difference  between  capture 
and  captor,  value  and  valley.  This  practice  has  not  died 
out,  but  is  now  distinctively  rural  and  old-fashioned,  save 
in  a  few  words,  such  as  "  contribbit,"  "  critter,"  "  ockipy," 
"  vallible,"  which  may  be  heard  anywhere  among  the  so- 
cially unelect.  An  elderly  Provincetown  skipper,  when 
questioned  about  his  health,  may  still  reply:  "  I  barly  con- 
tinner."  Meanwhile  Perry  and  Webster,  with  their  in- 
sistence on  a  cryptic  "  long  u  "  under  all  circumstances, 
have  beguiled  some  of  their  uncritical  followers  into  the 
invention  of  such  forms  as  "  nate-your,"  "  verd-your," 
"  iss-you,"  "  as-your,"  which,  however,  have  not  found 
acceptance  in  good  society. 
The  comparatively  modern  vowels  exemplified  in  cut  and 


138  OLD  AND  NEW 

cur  offer  no  striking  local  characteristics.  The  "  short  u  " 
is,  indeed,  apt  to  be  carried  further  back  in  the  mouth  in 
the  state  of  Maine  than  it  is  elsewhere,  and  sounds  a  little 
like  ah,  so  that  sculpin  to  a  Massachusetts  ear  almost  sug- 
gests "  scahlpin."  The  New  England  cur  is,  of  course,  a 
bob-tailed  one,  inasmuch  as  it  has  no  r;  whereas  the  Middle 
Westerner  is  in  such  a  hurry  to  get  to  his  r  that  he  runs 
it  into  the  preceding  vowel,  pronouncing  the  u  and  the  r 
simultaneously.  The  British  cur  is  as  r-less  as  ours,  but 
has  a  more  open  sound,  considerably  resembling  our  car. 
For  such  a  word  as  first,  we  distinguish  London  "  fahst, 
Boston  "  fuhst,"  Chicago  "  furst,"  and  New  York  "  fuh- 
eest."  Heard  obviously  stands  apart:  as  Webster  tells 
us  in  1789,  this  word  was  "  heerd  "  in  New  England  before 
the  Revolution,  but  since  that  event  fashionable  people 
have  imitated  the  British  "  hurd  ";  at  present,  of  course, 
"  heerd  "  is  very  rural. 

With  regard  to  ah  and  a,  New  England  is  on  the  side  of 
the  old  country  and  at  variance  with  all  the  rest  of  her  own, 
except  a  part  of  Virginia.  I  have  discussed  this  subject 
elsewhere,  and  shall  not  now  go  into  details.  Like  the 
vowels  of  cut  and  cur,  our  modern  ah  is  a  new  sound,  which 
developed  out  of  a  in  the  last  decades  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Before  r  —  unless  the  r  was  itself  followed  by  a 
vowel  —  the  eighteenth  century  a  changed  to  ah  both  in 
England  and  in  all  the  United  States:  car,  cart,  carter  be- 
came "  cahr,"  "  cahrt,"  "  cahrter  ";  then,  in  Old  and  New 
England, " cah,"  "  caht,"  "  cahta  " ;  while  carry  kept  its  short 
vowel.  The  split  in  usage  came  not  here,  but  in  cases — about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  of  them — in  which  the  next  consonant 
was  not  r,  but  a  fricative  (f,  s,  or  th},  an  ns  or  nt,  or  an  Im: 
such  words  as  half,  laugh,  pass,  past,  path;  dance,  advantage, 
branch,  can't,  Nahant;  calm,  psalm  —  most  of  which  the 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  139 

Yankee  naturally  pronounces  with  ah  if  they  belong  to  his 
everyday  vocabulary.  Can't  always  has  ah,  but  the  less 
familiar  cant,  the  noun,  has  a.  Pantry  took  an  ah,  but  pant 
apparently  came  too  late.  "  Commahnd,"  "  demahnd," 
lying  just  outside  the  nt  category,  are  not  uncommon.  The 
"  Italian  a  "  is  most  constant  among  farmers,  less  stable 
among  city  people,  whose  convictions  have  been  shaken  by 
contact  with  the  Irish  and  also  by  the  school  teacher,  who 
has  often  insisted  on  a  compromise  vowel.  With  our  rustics 
the  ah  became  such  a  favorite  that  it  was  extended  to  all 
sorts  of  words  outside  our  classes  —  words  like  apple,  ham- 
mer, handsome,  matter,  Saturday,  which  even  now  some- 
times retain  the  broad  vowel.  The  fashion  seems  to  have 
been  at  its  height  between  1830  and  1850.  The  aun  words, 
such  as  laundry,  launch,  jaunt,  generally  take  ah  in  New 
England;  and  so  does  aunt,  which  is  rather  emancipated 
from  the  group.  The  conflict  between  ah  and  a  is  the  most 
prolific  source  of  enmity  between  East  and  West.  To  the 
Easterner,  the  a  smacks  of  interminable  flatlands;  to  the 
Westerner,  the  ah  seems  a  sonorous  affectation.  It  should 
be  added  that  the  "  broad  a  "  of  New  Englanders,  Italianate 
though  we  be,  is  not  so  broad  as  that  of  Old  England  and 
of  most  of  the  United  States.  Our  grass  really  lies  between 
the  "  grahs  "  of  a  British  lawn  and  the  "  grass  "  of  the 
boundless  prairies. 

Another  pair  of  vowels  is  responsible  for  much  disagree- 
ment, though  not  a  source  of  hostility.  Shall  we  say  "  Sff  " 
or  "  awf,"  "  d6g  "  or  "  dawg,"  "  ISng  "  or  "  lawng,"  "  on  " 
or  "  awn?  "  The  two  sounds  that  come  into  competition, 
the  vowel  of  lot  and  the  vowel  of  law,  are  generally  regarded 
as  the  short  and  the  long  of  one  and  the  same  type  of  o; 
and  so  they  are,  approximately,  in  England,  where  both 
law  and  lot  are  pronounced  with  the  lips  somewhat  rounded, 


140  OLD  AND  NEW 

the  aperture  being  smaller  for  law  than  for  lot.  In  America 
the  rounding  of  the  lips  for  the  sounds  has  disappeared, 
except  in  New  England  (especially  Maine),  which  keeps  a 
trace  of  it;  the  change  seems  to  have  occurred  about  a 
century  ago.  To  make  an  American  aw,  as  in  law,  one 
must,  so  to  speak,  swallow  the  tongue  —  that  is,  draw  it 
as  far  back  and  as  far  down  as  it  will  go.  The  "  short  o  "  of 
lot,  in  the  United  States,  has  become  identical,  save  in 
quantity,  with  the  ah  of  father;  only  New  England  pre- 
serves the  distinction,  using  one  vowel  for  hard  ("  hahd  "), 
another  for  "  hod."  The  rest  of  the  country  pronounces 
hot  like  German  hat,  thus  introducing  "  Italian  a  "  into  a 
vast  new  category  of  words  while  refusing  it  admission  to 
another.  The  American  who  scorns  to  say  "  pahst "  for 
past  gladly  pronounces  "  pahd  "  for  pod.  Actors  of  the 
better  class  and  trained  elocutionists  affect  the  English 
practice,  making  both  aw  and  6  more  or  less  round,  and 
differentiating  6  from  ah.  An  actor  who  in  a  society  r61e 
should  say  "  I've  gaht  ut "  for  "  I've  got  it  "  would  not 
escape  reprobation.  Now,  as  I  said,  the  vowels  of  law  and 
lot,  however  they  be  sounded,  compete  for  acceptance  in 
several  classes  of  words.  In  the  first  place,  a  and  au  before 
an  /  that  is  followed  by  another  consonant  —  as  in  also, 
alter,  faidt,  scald  —  have  in  England  both  pronunciations; 
in  America  they  always  have  the  sound  of  law,  save  that 
the  Yankee  sometimes  is  heard  to  use  8.  It  is  much  the 
same  with  the  second  class,  in  which  an  o  (or,  after  w  or  #, 
an  a)  precedes  a  surd  fricative,  as  in  cloth,  lost,  often,  wash; 
but  here  the  Yankee  8  is  notably  commoner  than  in  the 
first.  Before  a  sonant  fricative  or  a  liquid  —  as  in  bother, 
novel,  rosin,  was,  and  in  doll,  horrid,  quarrel,  swallow  — the 
aw  sound  is  alien  to  the  usage  of  our  Eastern  cities,  as  it  is 
to  the  standard  speech  of  the  old  country,  but  is  pretty 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  141 

frequent  in  all  rural  America.  Before  a  nasal  (as  in  long, 
on,  romp)  or  a  sonant  stop  (as  in  dog,  God,  squab),  the  sound 
is  in  England  regularly  8,  while  in  America  there  is  diver- 
sity: the  words  in  ong  (such  as  long,  strong)  always  have  aw 
in  natural  American  speech,  and  so  have  gone,  dog,  and  dog- 
gerel; bog,  fog,  log  are  almost  as  generally  addicted  to  aw; 
the  word  on  normally  has  it  hi  the  South;  "  Gawd  "  and 
"  God  "  are  divided  according  to  church  and  temperament 
(one  man  confessed  to  me  that  he  employed  "  God  "  in 
profanity,  "  Gawd  "  hi  prayer);  the  rest  have  in  New  Eng- 
land the  short  vowel,  elsewhere  both  the  short  and  the  long. 
In  the  state  of  Maine  certain  common  words  have  pro- 
gressed —  or  receded,  as  one  may  choose  to  call  it  —  from 
aw  to  d:  foggy  has  become  "  fogy,"  porgy  is  identical  with 
pogy,  northward  is  "  nothud."  So  on  Cape  Cod  the  old 
salts  say  "  nothud,"  "  nothaly,"  "  notheast,"  but  always 
"  naw-west."  The  contest  between  our  two  vowels,  long 
and  short,  seems  to  have  been  going  on  for  considerably 
more  than  a  century.  E.  Hale's  Spelling-Book  (Northamp- 
ton, 1799)  prescribes  aw  in  cost,  dross,  frost,  froth,  moth, 
scald,  soft,  tongs,  d  in  fault,  gone,  halt,  malt,  swan,  vault, 
wand,  wash. 

The  short  vowels  heard  in  bit,  bet,  bat,  book  are  probably 
today  very  nearly  what  they  were  two  hundred  years  ago. 
The  first  three,  £,  £,  d,  are  a  little  closer  and  a  little  shorter 
in  England  than  in  America;  the  difference  is  especially 
noticeable  in  a  word  like  bad,  which  in  the  Englishman's 
mouth  sounds  to  an  American  almost  like  bed,  while  the 
American's  rendering  suggests  to  the  Englishman  a  pro- 
longed bleat.  In  this  respect  New  England  is  like  the  rest 
of  the  United  States.  The  rustic  substitution  of  £  fori, 
which  is  so  frequent  in  the  Biglow  dialect,  can  be  traced 
back  to  the  eighteenth  century.  Dearborn,  in  1795,  criti- 


142  OLD  AND  NEW 

cizes  "  sense  "  for  since  and  "  sperrit "  for  spirit;  Ware,  in 
1814,  gives  us  "  entu  "  for  into;  and  Cummings,  in  1822, 
mentions  "  desk  "  for  disc  and  "  set  "  for  sit.  This  phonetic 
tendency  is  still  alive,  and  may  attack  a  new  word.  The 
state  of  Maine  has  the  proud  motto  "  Dirigo,"  which,  as 
the  name  of  a  hotel,  is  apt  to  become  "  Derrigo."  The 
opposite  tendency  manifested  itself  in  the  case  of  certain 
words  during  the  eighteenth  century,  when  it  was  fashion- 
able to  say  "  frind,"  "  gineral,"  "  git,"  "  sildom,"  "  yis," 
"  yisterday."  "  Bliss  "  for  bless  is  recorded  also.  Franklin 
pronounced  "  frind  "  and  "  git."  The  conservative  Irish 
have  clung  to  these  forms;  among  Anglo-Saxons,  "  git," 
the  sole  survivor,  has  outlived  its  good  renown.  In  present 
day  Cockney  English,  a  turns  to  £,  and  cab,  thank  you  be- 
come "  keb,"  "  thenk  you."  The  Yankee  has  restricted 
this  practice  to  a  very  few  words,  such  as  "  hed,"  "  hev*," 
"  hez,"  "  kerridge,"  "  ketch,"  "  shell  ";  can  becomes  both 
"  ken  "  and  "  kin."  I  once  heard  a  schoolboy  declaim:  "  I 
hev  no  friend  or  relative  in  the  world  but  her;  I  never  hed, 
I  never  shell  hev."  And  once,  at  Point  Allerton,  a  retired 
sea  captain,  entering  the  "  settin'  room  "  where  one  of  his 
daughters  was  ingeniously  tormenting  the  piano  while  the 
other  with  equal  industry  tortured  her  poor  little  voice, 
beamed  upon  the  long-suffering  company  and  sententiously 
remarked:  "Music  heth  chahms."  Although  Franklin 
was  not  ashamed  to  say  "  hez,"  such  forms  have  now  grown 
countrified,  as  have  "  shet "  for  shut,  which  in  Webster's 
day  was  "  now  becoming  vulgar,"  and  "  bresh  "  for  brush, 
"  kiwer  "  for  cover,  "  sich  "  for  such,  and  "  crap,"  "  drap  " 
for  crop,  drop. 

If  the  English  language  were  left  to  its  own  devices,  free 
from  all  shackles  of  school  and  spelling,  it  would  soon  have 
only  two  unaccented  vowels,  the  two  that  begin  about  and 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  143 

enough,  that  end  sofa  and  lady,  that  stand  in  the  middle  of 
probable  and  possible.  Toward  these,  in  familiar  words  and 
in  natural  speech,  all  wholly  unstressed  vowels  tend.  And 
of  these  two,  the  first  would  greatly  encroach  on  the  second, 
as,  in  fact,  it  has  already  done,  possible  being  now  usually 
pronounced  in  America  with  the  middle  vowel  of  probable, 
enough  with  the  initial  vowel  of  about.  The  distinction  be- 
tween these  sounds  has  become  one  of  the  niceties  of  care- 
ful diction;  it  is  much  more  generally  observed  in  New 
England  than  elsewhere  in  America.  Particularly  offensive 
to  the  ear  of  the  old-fashioned  Yankee  is  the  same  substi- 
tution in  final  syllables  —  "  goodnus  "  for  goodness,  "  ah- 
nust  "  for  honest,  "  nakud  "  for  naked,  "  stahp  ut  "  for 
stop  it.  When  the  vowel  is  itself  the  last  sound  of  the  word, 
the  substitution  does  not  occur,  barring  such  isolated  cases 
as  Missouri.  Under  these  circumstances,  indeed,  the  New 
England  rural  dialect  has  inverted  the  shift,  turning  sofa 
to  "  sofy,"  soda  to  "  sody,"  Sarah  to  "  Sary."  How  an- 
ciently this  change  was  made,  I  cannot  say.  That  it  be- 
longs as  far  back  as  the  eighteenth  century  can  be  proved 
as  follows.  People  who  say  "  sody  "  for  soda  would  never 
dream  of  pronouncing  "  betty  "  for  "  betta,"  i.  e.,  better. 
Now,  since  "  betta,"  "  dippa,"  "  poka,"  end,  in  New  Eng- 
land, exactly  like  soda,  sofa,  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
farmer  should  not  transform  them  into  "  betty,"  "  dippy," 
"  poky,"  if  the  tendency  were  still  in  full  vigor.  Therefore 
the  active  period  of  this  tendency  must  antedate  the  fall  of 
final  r,  which  reduced  better  to  "  betta ";  and  this  fall 
occurred  not  later  than  1800. 

Now  that  we  are  speaking  of  unaccented  vowels  we  may 
pause  to  note  a  divergence  between  English  and  American 
practice.  Languages,  in  general,  are  impatient  of  accumu- 
lations of  stressless  vowels.  England  prefers  to  reduce 


144  OLD  AND  NEW 

their  number  by  omitting  the  weaklings;  America,  by  re- 
stressing  them.  Compare  "  difficlt  "  and  "  difficult," 
"  nessusry  "  and  "  necessary,"  "  miltry  "  and  "  military," 
"  temprully  "  and  "  temporarily."  In  this  last  case,  in- 
deed, as  in  the  case  of  primarily,  our  speakers  often  turn 
the  secondary  stress  into  the  principal  one.  The  same  in- 
clination to  accent  every  second  syllable  prompts  us  to  say 
"  advocate,"  "  h61iday,"  "  Thackeray,"  rather  than  "  ad- 
vokit,"  "  holidy,"  "  Thackery."  In  this  regard  New  Eng- 
land is  quite  American,  although  some  of  our  sophisticated 
city  folks  consciously  imitate  the  British  habit.  The  Amer- 
ican is  more  influenced  than  the  Briton  by  spelling  and 
etymology.  During  two  summers  spent  near  Chatham, 
on  Cape  Cod,  I  never  heard  that  town  called  otherwise 
than  "  Chat-ham  ";  so  Walthamis  "  Walth-ham,"  Concord 
is  frequently  "  Con-cawd."  Highland  Light,  near  Provinte- 
town,  is  in  native  parlance  High  Land  Light.  Webster,  in 
1789,  complains  of  our  susceptibility  to  the  letter,  citing  as 
instances,  in  the  eastern  states,  "  native,"  "  peert,"  could 
and  would  with  the  /  sounded;  in  the  middle  states,  "  preju- 
dice "  and  "  practice."  Readers  of  Martin  Chuzzlewit  re- 
call the  prevalence  of  "  toe  "  for  to;  thus  it  was  pronounced 
by  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Before  leaving  the  vowels,  which,  as  their  name  indicates, 
are  made  of  voice,  it  is  fitting  to  say  a  word  about  their  ma- 
terial. The  American  tends  to  vocalize  with  a  scanty  supply 
of  breath,  and  to  economize  its  outflow  by  keeping  his 
mouth  nearly  shut.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  uneconomical 
of  time,  especially  in  the  country.  Partial  closure  of  the 
mouth  and  general  relaxation  of  the  vocal  apparatus  pro- 
duce a  choked  nasal  resonance,  which  characterizes  his 
speech.  The  term  "  nasality  "  is  often  wrongly  applied  to 
a  quality  suggestive  of  nose  but  the  reverse  of  nasal,  being 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  145 

caused  by  a  stoppage  of  the  nasal  passages.  Real  nasality  I 
attribute  to  the  religious  temperament  of  the  Puritans, 
which  favored  inwardness  and  discouraged  expansion.  In 
New  England  it  is  disappearing,  with  piety. 

Of  the  consonants  there  are  fewer  things  to  say.  Most 
noteworthy  is  the  weakness  of  final  consonants  in  America. 
While  the  Briton  says  "  bitt,"  "  bett,"  "  batt,"  the  Yankee 
says  "  but,"  "  b&t,"  "  ba&t,"  with  a  prolonged  vowel  and 
an  enfeebled  /.  Still  feebler  is  the  final  sonant,  as  in  bid,  bed, 
bad.  So  weak  is  it  that  few  hearers  would  detect  its  com- 
plete omission.  Last  winter,  in  the  streets  of  South  Boston, 
I  came  across  two  Yankees  hawking  wood.  One  had  a  sharp, 
joyous  cry  of  "fire  wood,  fire  wood!  "  while  the  other 
wailed  monotonously  "  fire-woo',  fire-woo'!  "  I  followed 
their  cart  long  enough  to  hear  their  call  full  fifty  times,  and 
never  a  d  came  from  the  doleful  one. 

Some  individual  consonants  are  worthy  of  mention.  H 
need  not  detain  us,  since  the  British  confusion  in  its  use 
never  seriously  affected  America,  and  the  standard  through- 
out the  English-speaking  world  is  virtually  the  same.  This 
whole  domain  is  familiar  also  with  the  confusion  of  final  un- 
accented ing  and  in,  often  absurdly  called  "  dropping  one's 
g's  ";  in  reality  it  involves  no  "  dropping,"  merely  an  ad- 
vancement of  the  nasal  toward  the  front  of  the  mouth. 
"  Readin,"  "  writin,"  "  speakin "  were  perfectly  good 
British  pronunciations  in  the  eighteenth  century;  and 
"  bringin,"  "  ringin,"  "  singin,"  "  stingin  "  were  preferred 
by  many  to  the  forms  that  doubled  the  ing.  Franklin,  how- 
ever, said  ing,  and  American  authorities  discouraged  in. 
Nevertheless  it  flourished  on  this  side  as  on  the  other.  It  is 
still  the  favorite  of  the  rustic  and  the  negligent  urban,  and 
not  a  few  cultivated  people  in  Boston  and  other  New  Eng- 
land cities  continue  to  cherish  it  for  familiar  use.  The 


146  OLD  AND  NEW 

reaction  against  it  gave  rise  to  the  odd  pronunciations 
"  capting,"  "  certingly,"  "  curting,"  "  founting/'  "  mount- 
ing," and  so  on.  In  1795  we  find  stigmatized  as  improper 
"  brethering,"  "linning,"  "sarting,"  "severing."  A  lit- 
erary  gentleman  of  my  acquaintance,  very  precise  in  his 
language,  habitually  says  "  imaging  "  for  imagine. 

The  exchange  of  v  and  w,  unlike  the  abuse  of  h,  took  hold 
of  the  eastern  edge  of  our  country.  In  1789  Webster  de- 
clared: "  The  pronunciation  of  w  for  v  is  a  prevailing  prac- 
tice in  England  and  America;  it  is  particularly  prevalent  in 
Boston  and  Philadelphia.  .  .  .  Many  people  say  weal, 
wessel  for  veal,  vessel."  This  pronunciation,  he  adds,  is  not 
heard  in  Connecticut.  In  England  the  substitution  of  w  for 
v  (and,  in  a  misdirected  search  for  correctness,  of  v  for  w) 
was  very  general  in  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  did  not  stamp  the  speaker  as  a  boor.  During  the 
next  fifty  years  it  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  Cockney  vul- 
garism, and  now  it  has  nearly  disappeared.  In  America 
there  is  no  trace  of  its  former  existence  save  in  Atlantic  sea- 
ports. A  Boston  young  lady  in  1794  had  to  be  cautioned 
against  the  use  of  "  werry  "  and  "  wessel,"  but  early  in  the 
nineteenth  century  the  danger  must  have  been  over.  In 
Philadelphia,  however,  such  pronunciations  could  be  oc- 
casionally heard,  from  elderly  and  not  necessarily  ill-edu- 
cated people,  as  late  as  1850.  In  New  York,  judging  from 
dialect  stories,  they  lingered  in  the  slums  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  years  longer.  "  Wessel  "  may  still  be  heard  in  Hali- 
fax. It  is  along  our  seaboard  that  we  must  look  for  the  most 
abundant  American  traces  of  another  eighteenth  century 
phenomenon,  the  absorption  of  wh  by  w.  In  England  —  at 
least,  in  all  the  southern  part  —  where  is  still  identical  with 
wear,  while  with  wile,  whale  with  wail;  and  this  practice  was 
current  on  our  side  of  the  ocean  well  along  in  the  century 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION          147 

just  past.  Isaiah  Thomas,  of  Worcester,  in  1785,  tells  us 
that  weal  and  wheel,  wet  and  whet,  wight  and  white,  witch  and 
which  are  "  nearly  alike  in  sound."  "  Wether  "  for  whether 
is  cited  in  1794  and  1814;  wet  and  whet,  wight  and  white, 
witch  and  which  figure  in  a  list  of  homophones  in  1822. 
Lowell,  in  1848,  declares  that  the  Yankee  "  omits  alto- 
gether "  the  "  h  in  such  words  as  while,  when,  where."  This 
habit  has  almost  died  out  in  New  England,  even  among  the 
uneducated,  except  in  some  old  seaports,  such  as  Salem  and 
Gloucester.  The  wh,  which  had  probably  never  disappeared 
altogether,  was  restored  under  the  influence  of  the  spelling. 
Whoa,  however,  is  still  frequently  identical  with  woe;  wharf 
is  "  wawf  "  in  sea-going  places;  and  why,  the  interjection 
(as  distinguished  from  the  interrogative  particle),  is  almost 
always  "  wy." 

We  now  come  to  the  most  important,  the  most  difficult, 
the  most  strife-producing  of  consonants,  the  r,  whose  his- 
tory I  have  traced  elsewhere  and  need  not  now  repeat.  A 
brief  story  shall  suffice.  Toward  the  evening  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  our  once  domineering  consonant,  fallen  from 
vibrantly  vociferous  youth  to  a  feebly  fricative  senility, 
proceeded  to  decline  still  lower,  perishing  entirely  from  the 
speech  of  southern  England,  of  Yankeedom,  and  of  our 
southern  states,  or  dissolving  into  a  colorless  vocalic  mur- 
mur, unless  it  was  supported  by  a  following  vowel.  Carry, 
then,  retained  its  r,  such  as  it  was,  while  car  became  "  cah," 
cart  became  "  caht,"  and  care  (its  e  being  silent)  became 
"  ca-uh."  Thus  beside  forest,  with  r,  we  have  "  faw-uh  "  or 
"  faw  "  (for),  "  fo-ut  "  or  "  fawt"  (fort),  "  fo-uh  "  or  "  faw  " 
(fore).  Poorest  still  maintained  an  advantage  over  poor; 
cheery  could  vaunt  its  superiority  over  cheer,  beard,  and 
mere.  But  new  humiliation  was  in  store.  Even  in  this 
refuge  the  dethroned  tyrant  was  assailed;  even  between 


148  OLD  AND  NEW 

vowels  r  began  to  vanish  in  the  dialects  of  the  South  and  of 
New  England.  In  the  latter  region,  to  be  sure,  the  tendency 
was  checked  by  a  reaction  that  set  in  over  half  a  century 
ago.  Yet  still  many  an  elderly  Bostonian  is  "  ve'y  so'y  to  be 
late,"  still  many  a  hoary-headed  swain  picks  "  be'ies  "  and 
"  che'ies,"  still  the  dead  past  "  bu'ies  its  dead."  On  the 
other  hand,  the  new  Yankee,  who  once  more  pronounces  r 
before  vowels  but  not  otherwise,  who  says  "  fah  "  but  "  far 
away,"  "  betta  "  but "  better  and  betta,"  having  fallen  into 
the  habit  of  considering  r  merely  as  a  general  hiatus-stopper, 
proceeds  to  call  his  daughters  "  Eller  and  Emma  "  or  "  Em- 
mer  and  Ella,"  to  eat  "  rawr  oysters,"  to  push  "  the  sofer 
against  the  wall,"  and  all  the  time  has  "  no  idear  of  what  he 
is  doing  ";  in  other  words,  he  inserts  r  between  vowels, 
while  suppressing  every  r  that  is  not  followed  by  a  vowel. 
Meanwhile  the  middle  Atlantic  states  harbored  and  revived 

A 

the  dying  consonant.  The  border  states  were  more  or  less 
divided,  but  Maryland  sided  in  the  main  with  the  South, 
Connecticut  mainly  with  New  England.  When  and  how  the 
r  was  brought  back  to  favor  in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania, 
I  have  never  been  able  to  find  out.  Was  its  life  a  genuine 
survival  from  the  mid-eighteenth  century  ?  Was  it  a  school- 
masterly restoration  ?  I  have  sometimes  discussed  the 
question  with  a  Middle  Westerner,  and,  in  the  words  of  the 
poet, 

He  rather  thought  the  one, 

I  rather  think  the  other. 

An  argument  against  the  survival  theory  is  the  fact  that 
western  New  York  was  settled  from  New  England  after  the 
decay  of  our  consonant  had  set  in.  However  that  may  be, 
the  r,  kindled  with  fresh  strength  though  still  vibrationless, 
was  swept  west  with  the  human  tide  and  established  its 
kingdom  from  the  Hudson  —  perhaps  even  from  the  Con- 


NEW  ENGLAND  PRONUNCIATION  149 

necticut  on  some  parts  of  the  frontier  —  to  the  Rockies. 
Inasmuch  as  the  stream  of  emigration  from  Virginia  and  the 
Carolinas  was  r-less,  the  domain  of  our  consonant  found  a 
barrier  on  the  south.  To  the  west  it  still  pushes  on.  It  has 
become  a  most  aggressive  and  invasive  and  full-mouthed 
kind  of  r,  which  seems  to  permeate  everything,  like  a  smell 
of  gasoline.  In  its  presence  one  is  scarcely  conscious  of 
aught  else.  With  r  haughtily  curling  its  tongue,  the  sturdy 
West  looks  with  triumph  on  the  decrepit  East  and  South. 
R  is  the  symbol  of  its  strength,  its  enterprise,  its  self-con- 
fidence. In  this  sign  it  shall  conquer. 


VIII 
SCHOOL 

A  pleasing  land  of  drowsy-head  it  was, 
Of  dreams  that  wave  before  the  half -shut  eye; 
And  of  gay  castles  in  the  clouds  that  pass, 
For  ever  flushing  round  a  summer  sky. 

IN  no  respect  do  "  Anglo-Saxons  "  and  "  Neo-Latins  "  dif- 
fer more  essentially  than  in  their  reminiscences  of  school- 
days. Compare  Tom  Brown  and  Le  petit  Chose,  and  you 
will  find  a  contrast  that  is  characteristic  of  English  and 
French  letters,  a  contrast  which  may  help  us  to  understand 
certain  differences  in  national  temperament.  School  days 
are  the  formative  days  of  our  lives.  They  may  develop  in  us 
for  all  time  an  out-of-door  or  an  in-door  spirit,  an  intimacy 
or  a  merely  nodding  acquaintance  with  nature,  an  indif- 
ference to  transmitted  learning  or  a  reverence  for  knowl- 
edge. French  schools  have  considerably  changed  in  the  last 
generation,  but  they  remain  really  different  from  the  Eng- 
lish and,  I  think,  still  more  different  from  ours.  The  French 
visitor  to  an  American  school  is  surprised  to  see  the  class- 
rooms adorned  with  busts  and  pictures  which,  he  is  told,  are 
the  gifts  of  departed  classes;  from  every  wall  gaze  huge 
portraits  of  old  teachers,  loved  in  retrospect  by  their  former 
pupils;  libraries,  laboratories,  pianos,  phonographs  testify 
to  the  affectionate  remembrance  of  societies  of  alumni  or 
alumnae.  Not  only  in  private  institutions  does  he  behold 
these  evidences  of  perverted  feeling,  but  in  ordinary  public 
schools  of  all  grades,  establishments  maintained  by  general 

150 


SCHOOL  151 

taxation  and  filled  with  children  whose  presence  is  prescribed 
by  law.  Every  year  I  receive  an  enthusiastically  pressing 
invitation  to  attend  the  annual  banquet  of  the  Alumni  As- 
sociation of  a  municipal  grammar  school  which  closed  its 
doors  some  forty-five  years  ago.  I  shall  do  it  some  year, 
although  the  event  comes  at  a  most  inconvenient  season. 
If  only  I  could  be  sure  of  meeting  Gus  and  George  and  Billy, 
I  should  not  hesitate  a  moment.  Alas!  I  do  not  know 
whether  they  are  still  alive.1 

When  I  tried  to  expound  such  sentiments  to  my  French 
visitor  —  who  was  a  real,  flesh-and-blood  visitor,  and  not, 
like  most  of  his  kind,  a  hypothetical  foreigner  invented  to 
point  a  moral  —  he  fell  to  musing,  and  presently  confessed 
that  he  could  discover  in  his  heart  no  symptom  of  a  desire  to 
revive  his  scholastic  existence.  If  not  a  nightmare,  it  was  a 
hard  apprenticeship.  Some  of  his  old  mates  he  still  loved, 
to  be  sure,  but  with  a  love  begotten  of  common  misery.  To 
some  of  his  old  teachers  he  now  felt  grateful  for  what  they 
had  given  him.  The  recollection  of  some  prank  still  pro- 
voked a  momentary  chuckle.  But  the  experience  as  a  whole 
was  one  that  he  preferred  to  forget.  This  is  the  frame  of 
mind  I  have  habitually  encountered  among  continental 
Europeans,  among  Germans  not  less  than  among  French, 
Italians,  and  Spaniards.  Transition  from  school  to  univer- 
sity is  for  them  like  opening  the  doors  of  a  prison-house;  it 
is  a  sudden  passage  from  gloom  to  sunshine,  from  repression 
to  lawless  independence. 

My  Frenchman,  recovering  from  his  amazement,  made 
inquiry  concerning  the  intellectual  activities  of  the  school. 
The  first  documents  submitted  to  him  were  a  copy  of  the 
school  newspaper,  a  program  of  the  latest  school  concert,  an 
announcement  of  the  next  school  dance;  and  he  was  hos- 
1  They  are.  Since  writing  the  above  I  have  looked  them  up. 


152  OLD  AND  NEW 

pitably  invited  to  witness  the  impending  school  dramatic 
performance.  It  was  a  great  pity,  he  was  told,  that  the 
brevity  of  his  stay  would  preclude  the  possibility  of  his  en- 
joying the  school  pageant,  which  had  to  be  held  late  in  the 
spring;  but  fortunately  there  were  school  athletic  contests 
at  all  seasons  —  football,  hockey,  basket  ball,  track  events, 
baseball,  so  climatically  diversified  that  no  moment  of  the 
school  year  was  wasted.  Bewildered  by  this  unexpected 
abundance  of  scholastic  interests,  he  clean  forgot  to  ask 
about  the  course  of  study,  the  matter  with  which  he  was 
primarily  concerned;  and  it  did  not  occur  to  anyone  else  to 
introduce  the  subject.  Subsequently  I  explained  to  him 
that  we,  like  the  ancient  Greeks,  regard  the  education  of  the 
body  as  no  less  important  than  the  training  of  the  mind,  an 
opinion  with  which  he  agreed  "  in  principle  ";  then  I  pointed 
out  that  physical  competitions  encourage  self-confidence, 
alertness,  and  the  habit  of  mutual  assistance,  known  as 
"  team  play."  To  account  for  the  dramatics  and  dances,  I 
set  forth  our  idea  of  the  school  as  a  "  civic  centre  "  and  our 
desire  to  make  it  seem  a  place  of  voluntary  rather  than  com- 
pulsory sojourn.  Furthermore,  at  the  risk  of  getting  be- 
yond my  depth  in  sociological  waters,  I  maintained  that  our 
ordinary  high  school  pupils,  crude  as  they  may  appear,  rep- 
resent a  degree  of  refinement  notably  higher  than  the  stage 
attained  by  their  parents,  who,  recognizing  the  inferiority 
unremittingly  imputed  to  them  by  their  offspring,  are 
prone  to  depend  upon  the  latter  for  social  guidance  —  in 
fact,  to  leave  to  them  the  conduct  of  all  social  functions  — 
and  therefore  contemplate  with  complacency  the  develop- 
ment of  the  young  as  arbiters  of  elegance.  It  is  natural, 
then,  I  concluded,  that  mothers  and  fathers,  wishing  to  see 
their  children  happy  and  respected,  should  think  more  of 
their  success  in  play  than  of  their  attainments  in  the  field 


SCHOOL  153 

of  learning,  a  terra  incognita  which  the  elders  have  never 
had  leisure  or  inclination  to  cultivate. 

Turn  about  is  fair  play.  The  time  came  when  I  was  the 
observant  foreigner,  examining  education  in  France.  To 
tell  the  truth,  I  was  not  a  stranger  to  it,  having  lived  in 
France  as  a  child  and  again  as  a  youth.  I  may  say  in  pass- 
ing that  if  education  be  measured  by  variety  of  scholastic 
opportunity,  I  am  the  most  highly  educated  person  of  my 
acquaintance.  In  my  boyhood  I  attended  eight  different 
schools,  seven  public  and  one  endowed;  later  I  was  a  stu- 
dent at  three  universities,  situated  respectively  in  America, 
France,  and  Germany.  During  seven  subsequent  years  my 
business  was  inspecting  schools.  For  the  sake  of  a  complete 
record  let  me  add  that  I  have  been  a  university  teacher  both 
in  America  and  in  France.  These  statements  I  put  forward 
by  way  of  credentials  for  a  comparison  which  I  purpose  to 
make.  Now,  the  first  thing  that  strikes  an  American  on 
entering  a  French  school  is  the  bleakness  of  its  atmosphere. 
Handsome  though  many  of  the  structures  be,  there  is  scant 
suggestion  of  comfort  within.  Bare  and  chilly,  the  rooms 
offer  no  invitation  to  luxurious  ease.  The  second  impres- 
sion that  one  gets  —  if  one  wait  for  a  second  —  is  an  im- 
pression of  intense  mental  activity.  There  is  none  of  the 
somnolence  and  little  of  the  inattention  that  pervade  an 
American  classroom.  The  teacher  is  really  teaching,  not 
merely  "  hearing  lessons  ";  and  the  learners  are  really  learn- 
ing. Moreover,  they  are  learning  things  which,  from  our 
point  of  view,  are  far  beyond  their  years.  This  estimate  is  cor- 
roborated by  further  inquiry.  As  we  follow  the  course  of  a 
French  child's  education,  as  we  watch  what  he  does  in  school 
and  at  home,  as  we  converse  with  him  and  discover  his 
modes  of  thought,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  from  start 
to  finish  he  is  forging  so  rapidly  ahead  of  the  American  boy 


154  OLD 

that  on  graduation  from  the  lycee,  at  seventeen,  he  will  be 
almost  if  not  quite  the  equal  of  the  American  A.B.  of  two- 
and-twenty.  When  I  call  him  "  the  equal,"  I  mean  that  he 
has  as  plentiful  a  supply  of  knowledge,  as  ready  and  accurate 
a  judgment,  as  mature  an  understanding,  as  great  a  power 
of  application.  Intellectually,  then,  the  French  lad  is  some 
five  years  ahead  of  our  sons.  Physically,  he  compares 
pretty  well  with  an  American  of  his  own  age.  He  has  worked 
hard,  but  he  has  lived  wholesomely  and  has  enjoyed  a  fair 
allowance  of  play.  Sports,  while  yonder  they  do  not  take 
precedence  of  study,  are  nevertheless  pursued  with  keen 
zest;  indeed,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  they  are  today  in  France 
almost  as  varied  as  they  are  in  our  country,  and  widely  dis- 
tributed, participants  being  more  numerous  than  "  rooters." 
Besides,  the  French  boy  gets  healthy  recreation  from  amuse- 
ments which  would  seem  trivial  and  childish  to  his  less 
philosophical  American  coeval,  and  can  thus  obtain  quick 
relaxation  at  odd  moments,  without  the  complex  mechanism 
of  organized  athletics. 

If  wishes  were  hobby  horses,  an  enlightened  pedagogical 
petitioner  would  ride  a  span:  scholastic  efficiency  would 
trot  side  by  side  with  civic  centrism;  the  pupil  would  at  the 
same  time  learn  his  lessons  and  love  his  school.  Is  such  a 
consummation  impossible  ?  Of  course,  as  long  as  we  Ameri- 
cans were  brought  into  competition  only  with  one  another, 
it  mattered  little  whether  we  were  educated  or  not,  because 
we  were  all  in  the  same  class.  But  now  that  we  are  a  "  world 
power,"  and  have  to  race  with  sprinters  trained  to  win,  we 
too  must  submit  to  training  or  we  shall  be  left  behind.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  hate  to  give  up  our  pleasant  old  happy- 
go-lucky  ways,  in  school  and  elsewhere.  It  is  doubtful, 
however,  whether  we  could  have  kept  them  long,  even  if  we 
had  no  foreign  rivals.  Our  country  is  filling  up,  our  fluid 


SCHOOL  155 

society  is  solidifying,  there  is  no  longer  an  overflowing  abun- 
dance for  all,  idle  and  industrious,  unskilled  and  skilled 
alike.  The  time  has  gone  by  when  the  ideal  American  type 
is  the  unlettered  barefoot  boy  who  arrives  in  town  with  two 
cents  in  his  pocket  and  promptly  becomes  a  multimillionaire. 
We  no  longer  assume,  in  defiance  of  the  proverb,  that  Jack 
is  good  at  all  trades.  Soon  there  will  be  no  place  for  the  in- 
competent, and  the  seat  of  the  half-competent  will  be  hard. 
Fierce  internal  competition  must  continually  raise  the 
standard  of  acceptibility,  as  it  has  been  raised  in  France. 
Painless  pedagogy  will  soon  be  a  thing  of  the  past. 

After  all,  I  may  be  exaggerating  the  sacrifice.  Even  our 
present  easy-going  methods  are  not  altogether  painless. 
Our  children  do  not  seek  school  of  their  own  volition  nor  do 
they  remain  there  willingly.  Compulsion  and  repression  are 
the  chief  of  our  scholastic  diet  even  now.  Love  of  school  is 
not  contemporaneous  with  residence  therein;  it  is  an  after- 
product.  In  spite  of  all  that  is  done  to  amuse,  the  pain  out- 
weighs the  pleasure  as  long  as  schooldays  last;  only  in 
recollection  does  the  pleasure  outbalance  the  pain.  While 
some  teachers  are  more  bearable  than  others,  even  the  best 
of  pupils  could  without  bereavement  forego  the  society  of  the 
whole  lot.  In  order  to  accomplish  never  so  little,  our  boys 
and  girls  must  sit  for  hours  at  their  desks  and  must  keep 
their  minds  on  one  thing  for  an  appreciable  lapse  of  time; 
and  children  hate  to  apply  themselves  consecutively  or  to 
sit  still.  Even  at  its  easiest,  education  is  a  bore.  Otherwise 
it  would  not  require  such  a  vast  amount  of  machinery.  And 
this  cumbrous  mechanism  is  constantly  increasing  in  rigidity 
and  complexity!  Should  an  efficiency  expert  from  Mars 
attempt  to  tabulate  the  various  official  activities  of  an 
American  college  or  of  one  of  our  large,  up-to-date  schools, 
he  would  reach  this  result:  administration,  55  per  cent; 


156  OLD  AND  NEW 

teaching,  35;  study,  10.  It  is  just  conceivable  that  if  our 
scholars  had  to  dig  deep  enough  to  unearth  the  significance 
of  the  things  they  are  studying,  the  interest  thus  aroused 
would  make  their  task  lighter;  it  is  possible  that  real  work 
would  seem  preferable  to  the  cheap  imitation.  If  idle  hands 
and  idle  minds  were  less  exposed  to  Satanic  influence,  ad- 
ministration could  without  danger  dwindle  correspondingly. 
However  this  may  be,  what  we  should  like  to  discover  is  a 
way  of  uniting  the  effectiveness  of  the  French  school  with 
the  comparatively  homelike  atmosphere  of  the  American. 
One  step  in  that  direction  would  be  a  better  classification  of 
pupils,  to  the  end  that  each  family  be  neither  too  big  nor 
too  heterogeneous.  Tests  will  avail  nothing  unless  school 
authorities  are  prepared  to  take  account  of  the  mental  and 
moral  differences  they  reveal.  Present  pedagogical  fashion 
demands  that  in  a  public  institution  no  inmate,  however 
hopeless,  be  cast  out  —  nay,  further,  that  all  pupils  be  pro- 
moted, even  those  who  have  conclusively  proved  their  in- 
ability to  proceed.  To  say  that  a  school  intended  for  all  and 
supported  by  all  should  care  for  all  is  reasonable;  to  plead 
that  even  the  most  backward  child  should  not  be  deserted, 
but  should  be  developed  according  to  its  capacity,  is  hu- 
mane; but  neither  reasonable  nor  humane  is  the  policy  of 
shoving  all  along  together,  expecting  some  unfortunate 
woman  to  instruct  simultaneously  a  crowd  of  fifty  urchins  of 
all  degrees  of  ignorance  and  stupidity.  In  such  a  case  the 
teacher  can  do  no  more  than  go  through  the  motions  of 
teaching,  while  restraining  her  charges,  as  far  as  possible, 
from  overt  acts  of  violence.  The  dullards  become  more 
stultified  than  ever,  the  naturally  capable  have  no  chance 
to  put  their  faculty  to  use,  the  teacher  loses  all  vitality;  Sa- 
tan alone  is  benefited.  If  the  community  wishes  its  children 
to  be  educated,  the  community  must  provide  a  sufficient 


SCHOOL  157 

number  of  classes;  if  the  community  wants  its  defectives  to 
be  cared  for,  it  must  furnish  special  instruction  adapted  to 
their  needs.  It  is  not  right,  it  is  not  patriotic  to  sacrifice  the 
competent  to  the  incompetent,  to  neglect  those  who  will 
have  to  do  society's  work  for  the  sake  of  those  who  can 
never  be  aught  but  a  burden  to  society.  What  opportunity 
is  there  for  the  growth  of  leaders,  or  even  of  intelligent  fol- 
lowers, when  the  scholastic  standard  is  the  poorest  per- 
formance of  the  poorest  pupil  ? 

In  Erewhon,  not  so  many  years  ago,  a  new  Superintendent 
dawned  upon  the  schools,  heralded  by  a  crimson  aurora  of 
praise  from  pedagogical  authorities.  He  was,  indeed,  a  fa- 
mous statistician,  and  he  knew  the  latest  approved  theories 
of  education  from  A  to  Izzard.  Pupils  and  teachers  were  to 
him  but  pawns  in  a  great  game  of  tabulation;  as  human 
beings  they  had  no  interest,  and  he  avoided  contact  with 
them.  His  dream  —  for  he  was  an  idealist  in  his  way  — 
was  to  stand  up  in  a  national  meeting  of  Superintendents 
and  display  tables  transcending  those  of  any  other  city. 
One  of  his  first  measures  was  the  promulgation  of  a  decree 
that  henceforth  the  rating  of  every  teacher  should  depend 
on  the  proportion  of  pupils  promoted  by  her.  A  perfect 
teacher  was  to  be  one  who  pushed  along  100  per  cent.  One 
who  declared  only  80  per  cent  of  her  miscellaneous  charges 
to  be  fit  for  advancement  was  in  danger  of  being  cast  into 
outer  darkness  —  or,  in  plain  parlance,  of  losing  her  job. 
Great  was  the  alarm  among  the  skillful,  conscientious 
schoolmistresses  whose  lives  were  spent  in  trying  to  incul- 
cate real  knowledge  and  in  maintaining  respect  for  serious 
effort  and  attainment.  Great  was  the  joy  among  the 
comparatively  few  incapable  and  unscrupulous  instructors, 
who,  unable  to  impart  information  or  to  keep  their  idle 
classes  in  decent  order,  knowing  that  they  were  held  in  scant 


158  OLD  AND  NEW 

esteem  and  suspecting  that  their  tenure  of  office  was  pre- 
carious, sought  to  curry  favor  with  children  and  parents  by 
giving  everyone  a  high  mark.  These  became  the  elect  of  the 
new  administration :  they  were  held  up  as  models  for  the  real 
teachers;  they  were  commanded,  in  fact,  to  spy  upon  the 
latter  and  to  report  at  headquarters  any  expression  of  dis- 
affection. A  reign  of  terror  ensued  on  this  realm  of  topsy- 
turvydom. After  some  disastrous  experiences,  the  honest 
teachers  were  afraid  to  breathe;  a  word  of  complaint,  a 
whispered  revelation  of  the  truth  invited  capital  punish- 
ment. For  the  Superintendent,  like  most  tyrants,  was  a 
rancorous  man,  as  petty  and  cruel  as  he  was  dictatorial. 
Furthermore,  the  decree  having  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  children,  word  went  abroad  through  the  schools  that 
under  the  new  dispensation  nobody  needed  to  work,  inas- 
much as  all  were  to  be  promoted  and  receive  diplomas 
whether  they  studied  or  not.  The  consequence  can  be  im- 
agined. "  Redeunt  Saturnia  regna  ":  the  Golden  Age  was 
renewed.  The  coming  generation  in  Erewhon  seemed 
destined  to  realize  Rousseau's  fanciful  image  of  primitive 
man,  uncontaminated  by  science  or  art,  undepraved  by 
thought.  But  ere  this  result  was  consummated,  the  Super- 
intendent, in  recognition  of  his  splendid  service  in  Erewhon, 
was  offered  in  Erewhemos  a  more  lucrative  post,  which  he 
promptly  accepted;  and  the  schools  of  Erewhon  were  left  to 
flounder  back  into  civilization  as  best  they  could. 

Promiscuous  promotion  is  a  phase  of  what  is  called  "  de- 
mocracy." If  we  give  a  diploma  to  the  boy  who  has  done 
something  and  withhold  it  from  him  who  has  never  even 
tried  to  do  anything,  we  are  making  invidious  discrimina- 
tions and  introducing  the  spirit  of  competition,  which, 
according  to  Rousseau,  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  malign 
fruits  of  awakening  intelligence.  It  should  be  remembered, 


SCHOOL  159 

however,  that  Rousseau's  virtuous  savages  were  so  scattered 
through  the  primeval  forest  that  they  scarcely  ever  met; 
when  one  did  encounter  another,  it  may  be  presumed  that 
he  unhesitatingly  brained  the  stranger,  unless  he  happened 
to  recall  opportunely  that  he  was  endowed  with  "  natural 
pity."  It  will  scarcely  be  maintained  that  natural  pity  is 
characteristic  of  schoolboys;  nor  can  they  be  kept  so  far 
asunder  that  Patsy's  doings  shall  be  hidden  from  Ikey  and 
Angelo.  If  Ikey  and  Angelo  study  and  Patsy  loafs,  these 
facts  are  known  to  all  three.  We  therefore  confront  this 
dilemma:  either  we  must  recognize  the  difference  and  refuse 
Patsy  —  regardless  of  his  lacerated  feelings  and  the  unholy 
glee  of  his  mates  —  the  certificate  awarded  to  Ikey  and 
Angelo;  or  we  must  boldly  declare  that  diplomas,  like  the 
gentle  rain  from  Heaven,  descend  equally  on  the  just  and  the 
unjust.  In  the  latter  case,  of  course,  the  diploma  ceases  to 
confer  any  more  distinction  than  is  bestowed  by  a  shower: 
graduation  means  no  more  than  getting  wet. 

When  everybody's  somebodee, 
Then  nobody's  anybody. 

In  the  tolerably  numerous  schools  and  colleges  in  which  this 
equation  has  been  approximately  worked  out,  it  has  justified 
itself  by  an  equalization  of  effort  on  the  part  of  the  pupils. 
The  value  of  the  diploma  being  zero,  this  is  the  exact  amount 
paid  for  it,  in  scholarship,  by  each  and  every  purchaser.  It 
has  been  observed  that  sane  persons,  who  by  chance  or  by 
evil  design  have  been  confined  in  a  lunatic  asylum,  have  be- 
come, after  a  few  years,  as  mad  as  their  merry  companions. 
Thus  a  lad  of  promise,  whom  an  accident  of  residence  has 
consigned  to  a  "  democratized  "  school,  little  by  little  loses 
his  ambition,  his  intellectual  curiosity  —  that  precious 
"  desire  to  know  "  which  in  Aristotle's  opinion  is  common 
to  all  mankind  —  and  at  the  end  of  his  education  is  not  a 


160  OLD  AND  NEW 

bit  less  ignorant  and  indifferent  than  the  primitive  beings 
who  have  shared  his  experience. 

A  demagogue  is  a  demagogue,  whether  he  be  political  or 
pedagogical.  He  appeals  to  the  meanest  of  passions  — 
envy.  Why  should  some  people  be  quicker  and  better  in- 
formed than  others  ?  If  all  cannot  have  brains,  no  one  shall 
have  any.  The  demagogical  equalization  is  always  a  lev- 
eling downwards.  When  education  in  America  began,  it 
was  intended  for  the  fit  and  was  designed  to  produce  a 
choice  type.  With  the  extension  of  opportunity  to  a  rapidly 
broadening  and  deteriorating  constituency,  the  educational 
demagogue  has  progressively  striven,  not  to  uplift  the 
quality  of  this  constituency  by  encouraging  it  to  its  utmost 
endeavor,  but  to  bring  down  both  the  subject  matter  and 
the  standard  of  instruction  to  a  level  within  Caliban's  easy 
reach.  "  Give  the  poor  boy  a  chance!  "  has  been  so  con- 
stantly the  cry  that  there  seems  to  be  no  chance  left  for  the 
poor  little  rich  boy.  And  the  riches  and  poverty  whereof  I 
speak  are  riches  and  poverty,  not  of  the  pocket,  but  of  the 
mind.  This  present  era  of  efficiency  ought,  more  than  any 
other,  to  avoid  the  waste  of  ability.  Every  type  of  talent 
should  be  fostered  and  cultivated,  every  superior  intelli- 
gence should  be  given  meat  worthy  of  its  appetite.  Democ- 
racy is  not  one  dead  level  of  stupidity;  if  it  were,  it  could 
not  long  survive.  The  sharp-sighted  and  swift  must  guide 
the  slow,  else  there  can  be  no  advance;  and  where  there  is 
no  advance,  there  is  decay  To  be  fit  to  direct,  to  know 
enough  about  roads  to  take  the  right  one,  the  quick  and  clear- 
eyed  must  be  taught  according  to  their  quickness;  they 
must  have  free  play  to  develop  their  aptitudes.  If  they 
shall  be  sacrificed  to  the  inept,  the  curse  of  the  impious 
offering  will  fall,  not  upon  them  alone,  but  upon  all  their 
weaker  fellows. 


SCHOOL  l6l 

The  moral  of  all  this  is  that  if  we  are  to  diminish  the 
French  boy's  five  years'  lead,  if  we  are  really  to  take  a 
respectable  place  among  educated  nations,  we  must  pay 
the  bill.  We  must  have  classes  small  enough  to  enable  the 
teacher  to  differentiate  the  strong  and  the  willing  from  the 
sluggards;  we  must  have  frequent  promotions  according  to 
individual  progress;  we  must  have  instruction  graded  to 
suit  the  recipients;  while  granting  every  help  and  every 
incentive  to  the  backward,  we  must  not  neglect  the  leaders 
nor  forget  that  they  are  the  ones  naturally  called  to  deter- 
mine the  fate  of  their  generation.  It  so  happens  that  for  the 
last  two  years  I  have  been  observing  the  conduct  of  a  large 
business  school.  This  enterprise  lays  no  claim  to  idealism  or 
philanthropy;  it  is  simply  a  money-making  institution,  a 
factory  —  but  a  factory  which  guarantees  its  output  and 
always  finds  a  market  for  it.  Now  this  school  has  a  number 
of  features  which  I  should  like  to  commend  to  more  pre- 
tentious halls  of  learning.  For  instance,  the  newcomer  is 
greeted  by  the  officials  with  a  welcoming  smile,  his  needs  are 
promptly  ascertained,  and  he  is  fully  launched  on  his  career 
within  an  hour  or  two  of  his  arrival.  I  need  not  dwell  upon 
the  contrast  between  this  introduction  and  the  lingering, 
often  forbidding  initiation  elsewhere.  More  important, 
however,  is  the  policy  of  unswerving  insistence  on  adequate 
performance.  In  each  course  the  student  has  a  chance  of 
promotion  every  week  or  every  fortnight,  but  only  on  con- 
dition of  attaining  a  grade  not  far  from  perfection.  On  the 
other  hand,  until  he  reaches  this  standard,  he  is  kept  at  the 
old  task,  always  under  stimulating  guidance,  as  long  as  his 
life  and  purse  shall  endure.  The  tuition  fee  being  fairly  high, 
he  has  a  powerful  motive  to  accelerate  his  pace;  and  his 
speed  cannot  be  increased  without  the  habit  of  accuracy. 
During  our  war  with  Spain,  when  the  unfortunate  Spanish 


1 62  OLD  AND  NEW 

ships  went  down  helplessly  before  our  guns,  a  friend  of  mine, 
a  practical  man,  observed :  "  What  a  penalty  people  have  to 
pay  for  not  doing  things  right!  "  Now,  in  our  familiar  edu- 
cational order,  a  pupil  may  proceed  from  the  bottom  of  the 
primary  school  to  the  college  degree  without  ever  in  his  life 
having  done  anything  right.  A  feeble  approximation  is 
accepted,  all  along  the  line,  in  lieu  of  the  real  article  —  not, 
in  most  cases,  because  the  learner  is  congenitally  incapable 
of  right-doing,  but  because  experience  indicates  to  him  that 
for  scholastic  purposes  the  easy  substitute  is  just  as  good. 
When  he  issues  forth  from  the  protecting  college  haven  to 
the  battle  of  adult  life,  the  penalty  awaits  him.  Our  usual 
collegiate  prescription  amounts  to  this:  the  student,  to 
obtain  regular  promotion,  must  do  about  two-thirds  of  his 
work  two-thirds  right.  Imagine  this  standard  applied  to 
a  bank  cashier,  a  bookkeeper,  or  even  an  elevator  boy.  A 
bill  clerk  who  should  succeed,  on  four  days  of  the  week,  in 
making  two-thirds  of  his  bills  tally  with  the  accounts  would 
have  to  be  a  son  of  the  senior  partner  to  get  much  credit  for 
good  intentions.  Another  maxim,  then,  is  that  we  must  not 
rest  content  with  anything  short  of  the  best  that  each  pupil 
can  do;  and  the  things  he  has  to  do  must  be  such  that  his 
best  shall  have  a  genuine  value. 

What  shall  these  things  be  ?  Here  is  the  hardest  problem 
of  all.  Its  difficulty  has  been  multiplied  manifold  by  the 
bewildering  expansion  of  science  during  the  last  century;  it 
has  been  heightened  also,  in  America,  by  the  influx  of  for- 
eigners. We  have  not  only  Percy  to  educate,  but  Patsy  and 
Ikey  and  Angelo.  We  have  to  consider  the  demands  of  vo- 
cational training.  We  must  admit  the  claims  of  science,  but, 
if  possible,  without  letting  them  override  our  judgment. 
We  are  confronted,  furthermore,  with  a  mass  of  freshly 
developed  educational  theory,  with  certain  doctrines  based 


SCHOOL  163 

on  recent  pedagogical  experiments.  Not  many  years  ago, 
we  used  to  be  told,  on  the  best  authority,  that  education, 
coming  from  educo,  "  I  draw  out,"  means  the  drawing  out, 
or  development,  of  innate  faculties.  Today  the  innate 
faculties  seem  unwilling  to  be  drawn  from  their  hiding 
place;  and  a  Latinist  whom  I  have  anxiously  consulted  in- 
forms me  that  educare  does  not  mean  "  to  draw  out."  Thus 
fashions  change.  When  the  eductive  style  was  at  its  height, 
and  I  was  on  the  threshold  of  my  career  as  a  teacher,  I  deter- 
mined to  try  the  method  as  I  had  seen  it  used,  apparently 
with  success,  by  a  brilliantly  eductile  professor.  It  was  a 
French  class,  and  in  the  front  row  sat  a  stupid,  well-meaning 
boy,  who  was  staring  at  me  with  fixed,  glassy  eyes,  seemingly 
hypnotized.  "  Just  speak,"  I  cried,  "  just  open  your  lips 
and  let  the  words  come  out!  You  can  if  you  only  will.  Let 
out  what  is  in  you.  Now  speak!  "  Brighter  gleamed  the 
glare  in  the  glassy  eyes;  slowly  the  great  mouth  opened,  and 
there  came  forth  a  confused,  inarticulate  roar,  such  as  once 
issued  from  the  brazen  jaws  of  the  bull  of  Phalaris.  Then 
and  there  I  made  up  my  mind  that  it  is  useless  to  draw  out 
what  is  not  in;  then  for  the  first  tune  I  appreciated  the 
vastness  of  the  vacancy  to  be  filled.  "  A  vacuum,"  once 
wrote  a  student  in  an  examination  in  physics,  "  is  a  great 
vacant  space  where  the  Pope  lives  all  alone."  Alas!  the 
mental  vacuum  of  studenthood  houses  no  infallible  mentor. 
To  put  nutritive  stores  into  an  empty  granary  —  that  is 
the  first  and  perhaps  the  chief  task  of  education.  But  if  the 
granary  be  not  tight,  the  grain  will  leak  out  almost  as  fast  as 
it  is  shoveled  in.  "  Understanding  without  remembering," 
says  Dante,  "  does  not  make  knowledge."  Memory  must 
be  constantly  stimulated  and  helped.  Today's  pedagogical 
theory  asserts  that  memory  cannot  be  cultivated:  it  is  in- 
born, full-grown  at  the  start,  and  not  susceptible  of  increase. 


1 64  OLD  AND  NEW 

To  the  theorist  it  matters  not  that  his  view  runs  counter  to 
the  general  experience  of  mankind.  That  a  seasoned  actor 
can  learn  a  part  ten  times  as  fast  as  a  novice  is  for  him  an 
irrelevant  detail.  However,  let  us  distinguish.  The  the- 
orist's theory  may  have  been  deduced  from  some  compre- 
hensive guess  concerning  the  faculties  of  the  human  mind, 
or  it  may  have  developed  from  a  generalization  of  the  results 
of  certain  specific  experiments.  In  the  first  case,  he  will  be 
impervious  to  argument  or  evidence;  in  the  second,  his 
opinions  may  perhaps  be  modified  by  demonstration.  Pos- 
sibly he  will  be  content  to  restrict  the  scope  of  his  assertion, 
affirming  merely  that,  while  practice  in  learning  one  par- 
ticular kind  of  thing  may  heighten  one's  speed  and  effective- 
ness hi  that  same  pursuit,  it  will  not  help  us  to  acquire  a 
different  kind  of  thing  quicker  or  better.  Even  this  proposi- 
tion will  be  hard  for  the  observant  teacher  to  swallow;  for 
he  will  have  noted  that  the  pupil  who  has  long  been  in  the 
habit  of  learning  and  remembering  can  catch  and  hold  a  fact 
at  one  presentation,  whereas  the  previously  idle  new  convert 
cannot  grasp  it  without  considerable  repetition.  Further- 
more, if  the  observant  teacher  has  been  teaching  and  observ- 
ing for  thirty  years,  he  will  have  remarked  that  the  power 
of  retaining  information  has  rapidly  declined  since  modern 
educational  theorizing  began  to  influence  practice.  An  ever- 
increasing  proportion  of  students,  with  the  best  of  good- 
will, simply  cannot  carry  a  thing  over  from  Monday  to 
Wednesday  or  from  Wednesday  to  Friday;  from  Friday  to 
Monday  is  seldom  attempted.  As  a  child,  I  was  inordinately 
fond  of  grasshoppers  —  not  as  an  accompaniment  to  wild 
honey,  but  as  playmates.  For  one  of  these  creatures,  which  I 
had  found  incapacitated,  by  the  loss  of  a  limb,  for  a  nomadic 
existence,  I  constructed  a  lovely  bower,  furnished  with 
every  comfort  that  a  grasshopper  could  desire  —  not  only 


SCHOOL  165 

grass,  which  was  plainly  indicated  by  etymology,  but  ferns, 
a  tiny  cave  or  two,  a  little  pool  of  fresh  water.  I  even  ob- 
tained from  my  father,  and  tucked  away  discreetly  in  a 
corner,  a  wad  of  tobacco,  conceiving  that  possibly  this  mate- 
rial might  be  needed  for  the  secretion  of  that  dark  brownish 
liquid  known  to  children  as  "  molasses  "  or  "  tobacco  juice." 
It  appeared  to  me  that  the  invalid  appreciated  these  atten- 
tions and  returned  in  some  measure  the  affection  I  spent  on 
him.  To  beguile  his  enforced  leisure,  I  tried  to  teach  him 
sundry  little  tricks,  such  as  lay  well  within  the  limits  of  his 
diminished  crural  activity;  and  in  the  course  of  a  morning, 
unless  I  deceived  myself,  my  patience  and  loving  kindness 
would  be  rewarded  by  at  least  a  partial  performance  of  the 
mild  acrobatic  feats  suggested  to  him.  But  on  the  morrow 
everything  had  to  be  started  afresh;  the  previous  day's 
training  had  left  not  a  trace.  Often,  of  late,  I  have  seemed  to 
be  teaching  a  class  of  grasshoppers,  whose  lives  began  anew 
every  day. 

We  ought  to  be  able  to  derive  from  our  own  mnemonic 
experience  some  ideas  about  the  utilization  of  children's 
memories.  Now,  we  know  that  the  things  which  have 
stayed  on  our  mental  tablets  are  those  which  have  made  a 
clean  mark.  In  babyhood,  starting  with  a  bare  slate,  I  sup- 
pose we  record  everything  we  perceive.  The  advancing 
child,  who  still  has  abundant  room  on  his  page,  registers 
most  of  his  perceptions,  although  some  of  the  impressions 
begin  to  overlap  and  blur.  As  we  go  on,  the  writing  becomes 
less  and  less  legible,  and,  as  a  rule,  only  those  things  stand 
out  which  are  strikingly  different  from  anything  written 
before.  Edinburgh,  which  I  saw  once  as  a  little  boy,  is  so 
clear  that  I  know  I  could  find  my  way  about  if  I  went  there 
again;  so  it  is  with  Lewiston,  Me.,  and  Chester,  Pa.,  pro- 
vided they  have  not  grown  beyond  recognition.  On  the 


1 66  OLD  AND  NEW 

other  hand,  Columbus  and  Nashville  and  Los  Angeles,  seen 
once  in  mature  years,  have  left  a  picture  that  is  pleasant  but 
almost  wholly  indistinct.  Not  so  Carcassonne,  which  is 
anything  but  a  normal  specimen  of  the  genus  Urbs.  Unlike 
the  man  in  the  poem,  I  did  contrive  to  see  Carcassonne 
before  dying,  though  well  after  the  middle  of  life;  and  every 
detail  of  it  is  indelible.  When  I  recall  London,  Paris,  Rome, 
or  Philadelphia,  which  I  have  visited  at  intervals  since  small 
boyhood,  the  image  that  first  presents  itself  is  the  earliest 
one,  more  or  less  dimmed  by  the  superposition  of  later  im- 
pressions. With  the  places  known  to  my  somewhat  migra- 
tory childhood  I  associate  the  books  I  read  in  those  several 
spots.  The  mention  of  Dorchester  brings  back  to  me  Pil- 
grim's Progress  and  Barnaby  Rudge,  there  perused  when  I 
was  six  or  seven.  A  certain  hill  in  Worcester,  where  I  dwelt 
at  the  age  of  nine,  means  Adam  Bede.  I  have  forgotten  the 
very  name  of  the  little  village  in  Vermont  that  witnessed  my 
participation  in  the  Struggles  and  Triumphs  of  P.  T.  Bar- 
num.  From  the  Avenue  de  Villiers  in  Paris  I  journeyed  to 
the  moon  with  Jules  Verne.  And  these  first  literary  excur- 
sions are  the  ones  whose  impress  remains;  the  personages 
and  the  events  therein  encountered  are  more  real  to  me  than 
any  flesh-and-blood  people  I  have  ever  met.  Of  the  works 
read  since  I  reached  thirty  —  barring  those  few  which  de- 
part widely  from  the  usual  type  —  little  or  nothing  stays  by 
me.  Even  in  the  case  of  stories,  such  as  Adam  Bede,  reread 
in  later  years,  my  present  recollection  comprises  only  what 
lingers  from  the  first  reading;  the  second  perusal  has  only 
made  some  of  the  figures  a  bit  misty.  I  daresay  we  live  the 
greater  part  of  our  lives  before  we  are  fifteen,  no  matter 
what  age  we  eventually  attain.  From  these  considerations 
we  may  infer  that  the  sooner  a  child  learns  things,  the  better, 
especially  the  things  that  matter  most.  Furthermore,  if  we 


SCHOOL  167 

want  to  make  a  lasting  mark,  we  must  try  to  find  a  clean 
spot  on  the  slate,  or  else  draw  a  line  so  heavy  that  it  will 
stick  out  from  all  the  rest.  Then  we  must  be  sure  to  make 
our  first  record  a  correct  one  as  far  as  it  goes,  for  the  first  im- 
pression, right  or  wrong,  is  the  one  that  will  endure;  and  we 
must  be  careful  lest  subsequent  incongruous  images  blur  the 
original. 

The  criticism  oftenest  launched  at  our  schools  is  that  they 
stuff  the  child  with  facts,  instead  of  developing  his  powers. 
This  taunt,  which  regularly  accompanies  the  educo  theory  of 
education,  was  perhaps  justified  at  a  period  not  long  before 
my  birth.    When  I  was  a  schoolboy,  the  fact-stuffing  pro- 
pensity had  considerably  abated,  and  now,  judging  from 
results,  it  has  subsided  altogether.   The  latter-day  freshman 
is  served  up  to  us  with  so  little  stuffing  of  any  kind  that  it 
would  puzzle  a  pedagogical  epicure  to  name  the  ingredients. 
The  phrase,  however,  is  continually  repeated  from  force  of 
habit,  being  handed  on  by  one  generation  to  another,  es- 
teemed for  its  antiquity,  like  a  superannuated  piece  of 
furniture.     Presumably  there  was  an  epoch  when  pupils 
spent  their  time  learning  by  heart  a  lot  of  things  which  they 
did  not  understand.    I  wish  they  learned  more  things  now. 
What  the  American  people  needs  more  than  anything  else  is 
plain  knowledge;  for  we  are  a  woefully  ignorant  nation.    Of 
course,  children  should  be  led  to  think,  but  how  can  they 
think  if  they  have  nothing  to  think  about  ?    We  already 
have  too  much  ratiocination  in  vactw,  too  much  logic  with- 
out premises.    Descartes  was  of  the  opinion  that  reason  is 
pretty  evenly  distributed  among  human  beings.    Some  can 
use  it,  because  they  have  the  stuff  to  operate  with;  others, 
having  no  material,  cannot.    Knowledge  is  the  gasoline  that 
feeds  the  engine.    To  be  told  where  to  find  it  is  not  enough. 
When  I  want  to  use  the  product  of  8  X  9,  it  is  cold  comfort  to 


168  OLD  AND  NEW 

be  informed  that  the  multiplication  table  is  to  be  consulted 
in  a  book  called  Arithmetic,  on  the  left  end  of  the  top  shelf. 
I  once  knew  a  man  of  broad  and  fruitful  scholarship,  who, 
as  he  approached  middle  life,  began  to  construct  a  card 
catalogue.  He  often  spoke  of  it  with  glowing  pride  —  in 
fact,  he  seldom  spoke  of  anything  else;  and  whenever  he 
could  catch  a  couple  of  unwary  friends,  he  would  lead  them 
to  inspect  its  portentous  and  eternally  crescent  dimensions. 
But  he  never  wrote  anything  after  that.  He  had  no  time  for 
study  or  meditation;  the  catalogue  absorbed  his  life.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  all  of  us  must  keep  some  sort  of 
register  of  things  we  may  need  to  look  up,  or  hope  to  read; 
but  an  ounce  of  present  information  is  worth  several  tons  of 
the  futurity  of  a  card  catalogue. 

"  I  see  in  the  papers,"  said  the  Young  Lady  Across  the 
Way,  "  that  the  French  have  taken  three  hundred  metres 
from  the  Germans.  Now  I  hope  that  will  put  a  stop  to  those 
horrid  gas  attacks."  I  like  to  quote  the  Young  Lady  Across 
the  Way,  because  she  is  such  a  characteristic  product  of 
modern  education.  It  will  be  noted  that  her  logical  process 
is  impeccable.  She  has  Ppwer,  but  is  not  stuffed  with  facts. 
Had  she  been  ever  so  slightly  acquainted  with  the  metric 
system  and  the  methods  of  warfare,  not  only  would  she  have 
escaped  her  erroneous  inference,  she  would  also  have  been 
able  to  conjure  up  some  picture  of  the  event.  Facts  have  a 
double  value:  they  give  us  wherewithal  to  think  straight  and 
they  stimulate  the  imagination;  for  imagination,  like  rea- 
son, cannot  run  without  the  gasoline  of  knowledge.  And 
these  two  things,  judgment  and  imagination,  are,  with 
knowledge  itself,  the  most  precious  results  of  well  directed 
schooling.  The  cause  that  lies  behind  the  preposterous 
things  our  politicians  say  is  not,  in  general,  stupidity  nor 
dishonesty:  it  is  an  unjudicial  and  unimaginative  ignorance. 


SCHOOL  169 

Their  utterances  are  more  or  less  seriously  taken  because  the 
public,  equally  ignorant,  is  just  as  blank  and  undiscriminat- 
ing.  The  same  public,  for  the  same  reason,  is  ready  to  gobble 
up  the  bait  of  any  pseudo-religious  or  pseudo-scientific 
hoax.  Destitute  of  data,  it  cannot  check  up  an  account; 
nor  can  it  construct  an  image  of  things  as  they  are,  revealing 
the  absurdity  of  things  that  aren't  and  can't  be.  Hence  the 
peril  of  pseudo-educators. 

Appeal  to  the  imagination  is  the  real  educator's  most 
potent  resource.  On  the  one  hand,  the  well  informed  and 
therefore  thoughtful  pupil  has  vision  to  comprehend  the 
ultimate  profit  of  his  study;  thus  he  finds  an  adequate  mo- 
tive for  his  labor,  foreseeing  the  contingencies  in  which  it 
will  bear  fruit.  Whatever  is  done  without  a  purpose  is  ill 
done,  and  the  purpose  of  study  is  beyond  the  horizon  of  the 
short-sighted.  On  the  other  hand,  imagination  invests  study 
itself  with  charm.  It  means  sympathy,  understanding;  it 
means  originality  and  progress.  Never  can  we  improve  if  we 
conceive  of  nothing  better  than  we  are.  If  the  late  war 
showed  indubitably  that  college-bred  youths  are  more 
adaptable,  more  quickly  trained  than  others,  and  far  more 
resourceful,  it  is  because  the  liberal  arts  are  most  conducive 
to  creative  imagining.  Given  an  unprecedented  situation, 
an  unexpected  need,  the  man  of  routine  is  helpless,  and  the 
only  saviour  is  the  man  accustomed  to  look  beyond.  Re- 
forms, discoveries,  inventions  (unless  they  spring  from  ac- 
cident) are  made,  not  by  the  plodder  in  a  vocational  rut,  but 
by  the  seer  who  penetrates  the  underlying  principles  of  men 
and  things.  An  engineer  of  high  rank,  who  during  the  war 
was  entrusted  by  the  government  with  the  charge  of  select- 
ing leaders  in  various  branches  of  production,  assured  me 
that  for  almost  every  line  of  industry  he  had  to  choose  as 
director  someone  who  hitherto  had  not  been  identified  with 


170  OLD  AND  NEW 

that  particular  kind  of  enterprise.  The  specialist,  exercised 
from  the  beginning  in  unimaginative  handiwork,  always 
bent  on  concrete  detail,  has  no  eye  for  the  abstract,  no 
ability  or  willingness  to  see  further  than  the  visible.  Every 
suggestion  of  fundamental  innovation  seems  to  him  absurd, 
impossible,  and  arouses  either  his  amusement  or  his  hostility. 
This,  I  am  told,  is  the  great  defect  of  our  American  scientific 
colleges:  they  turn  out  graduates  who  are  machine-made 
and  machine-like,  good  for  one  thing  only.  They  are  like 
our  "  practical  politicians  "  who  "  run  with  the  old  ma- 
chine." And  this  same  mechanistic  type  of  training  is  now, 
in  our  ordinary  public  schools,  rapidly  encroaching  on  the 
humanistic  education  which  at  its  best  has  proved  its  power 
to  broaden  understanding  and  awaken  inventiveness. 

How  far  it  is  the  business  of  the  state  to  carry  on  voca- 
tional training  is  a  political  question,  whose  answer  is  in- 
volved in  the  general  problem  of  socialism.  For  my  own 
part,  I  believe  that  preparation  for  specific  trades  may  ad- 
vantageously be  undertaken  by  public  authorities,  if  it  be 
done  adequately  and  frankly  —  that  is,  if  the  instruction 
really  transform,  in  a  shorter  time  than  is  now  required,  an 
unproductive  into  a  productive  member  of  the  community, 
or  give  the  recipient  a  higher  degree  of  productiveness  than 
he  could  otherwise  attain;  and  if  this  course  be  taken  for 
what  it  really  is,  an  apprenticeship,  and  not  regarded  as  a 
substitute  for  the  traditional  studies  of  school.  Mistaken  is 
the  attempt  to  disguise  this  apprenticeship  as  scholastic 
education,  in  a  forlorn  hope  of  killing  two  birds  with  one 
stone.  The  outcome  of  this  compromise,  as  far  as  I  have 
had  opportunity  to  observe,  is  a  hybrid  which  is  neither  art 
nor  craft  nor  good  red  study,  a  thing  too  indefinite  to  possess 
a  cash  value  and  too  mechanical  to  meet  the  greater  needs  of 
the  mind.  Nevertheless,  it  may  have  considerable  utility 


SCHOOL  171 

as  play.  Of  course,  we  must  not  keep  the  child  everlastingly 
at  the  books  or  too  long  in  the  realm  of  the  abstract.  He 
must  use  his  hands  and  senses,  must  have  practice  in  dealing 
accurately  with  concrete  things.  Such  practice  the  boy  of 
the  past  and  the  fortunate  boy  of  the  present  have  got  from 
their  play  —  their  games,  their  tools,  their  printing  presses, 
their  carpenter  shops,  their  laboratories,  their  wireless 
telegraphy,  their  bicycles,  their  boats,  their  automobiles. 
Country  boys  have,  in  addition,  the  varied  experience  of  the 
farm.  Girls  have  had  their  sewing  and  housework,  and  now- 
adays they  have  most  of  the  boys'  resources  as  well — or 
instead.  These  boys  and  these  girls,  however,  are  not  the 
only  ones  we  have  to  educate;  they  no  longer  even  form  a 
majority  of  our  school  public.  We  must  reach  the  children 
of  the  congested  ward,  who  have  no  space  for  games  and  to 
whom  tools  and  bicycles  are  as  strange  as  Euclid.  Wood- 
work and  ironwork  and  other  kinds  of  handiwork  have  be- 
come, then,  a  necessary  adjunct  to  school.  But  they  replace 
sport,  not  study;  they  should  be  treated  as  recreation;  and 
the  time  for  them  should  be  taken,  not  from  learning,  but 
from  idleness.  On  this  footing,  with  games  and  gymnastics, 
they  can  well  occupy  a  good  slice  of  the  day.  They  need  not 
and  should  not  be  permitted  to  crowd  the  already  inade- 
quate hours  reserved  for  the  "  academic  subjects  "  —  that 
is,  for  the  "  three  R's,"  the  humanities,  and  the  principles  of 
science.  How  scant  these  hours  are  is  not  generally  ap- 
preciated: on  an  average  throughout  the  year,  they  are  not 
more  than  two  out  of  the  twenty-four. 

Knowledge,  roughly  speaking,  consists  of  two  branches: 
men  and  things.  Of  men,  our  knowledge  has  not  percep- 
tibly improved  since  the  time  of  the  ancient  Greeks;  of 
things,  our  knowledge  and  our  control  have  grown  at  a 
breathless  rate,  especially  in  the  last  hundred  years,  and  are 


172  OLD  AND  NEW 

growing  still.  It  is  natural,  then,  that  while  the  study  of 
man  should  remain  relatively  stable,  the  study  of  things 
should  be  in  a  state  of  flux  and  expansion.  We  cannot  ex- 
pand the  day,  although,  by  avoiding  waste,  we  can  put  more 
into  it.  How  shall  we  apportion  the  allotment  of  time  to  the 
two  branches  ?  Education  ought  to  prepare  the  educated, 
not  only  for  the  competent  performance  of  their  special 
tasks,  but  for  citizenship,  for  companionship,  for  full  human 
life,  for  leisure.  The  "  laboring  classes  "  —  those  whose 
labor  is  concerned  exclusively  with  concrete  things  —  are 
about  to  have  far  more  leisure  than  they  have  had  in  the 
past,  and  the  way  in  which  they  shall  enjoy  it  cannot  fail  to 
affect  the  general  intelligence  and  morals  of  society.  If  we 
are  to  avoid  the  danger  of  so  shaping  them  that  they  shall  be 
mere  mechanisms  in  working  hours  and  mere  wastrels  in  the 
rest,  we  must  give  them  an  insight  into  better  possibilities. 
We  must  teach  them  the  knowledge  of  man  —  what  man- 
kind, throughout  the  world,  is  doing  and  thinking,  what 
mankind,  through  the  ages,  has  thought  and  done  and  been. 
We  must  awaken  interest  in  the  great  problems  of  humanity, 
we  must  stir  the  imagination.  Imagination  of  one  kind  — 
the  sense  of  wonder  —  is  aroused  by  the  pursuit  of  the  ele- 
ments of  natural  science;  and  it  is  desirable,  for  obvious 
reasons,  that  men  should  have  an  idea  of  the  physical  uni- 
verse in  which  they  dwell.  Judgment  is  exercised  by  applied 
science,  and,  even  if  it  were  not,  applied  science  has  assumed 
in  modern  life  such  enormous  importance  that  it  cannot  be 
neglected.  For  applied  science,  one  needs  mathematics, 
which  in  itself  is  a  wholesome  discipline  because  it  requires 
a  high  degree  of  concentration  and  because  it  shows  so 
inexorably  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong.  But 
more  essential  than  all  these  for  rich  manhood  or  woman- 
hood is  the  study  of  man.  From  our  human  standpoint, 


SCHOOL  173 

man  is  the  center  of  the  universe,  and  things  exist  merely 
with  reference  to  him.  To  appreciate  our  neighbors,  to  un- 
derstand the  events  of  our  age  and  to  play  well  our  modest 
part  in  them,  to  fill  our  minds  with  thoughts  that  shall  befit 
our  human  dignity,  we  must  possess  the  judgment  and  the 
imagination  which  come  only  from  the  contemplation  of 
human  nature,  human  deeds,  human  institutions,  human 
intelligence,  human  aspirations.  Excessive  devotion  to 
things  has  plunged  the  world  into  the  black  and  bloody 
horror  from  which  (perhaps)  we  have  just  emerged.  With 
but  scanty  science  of  things,  the  Greeks  of  old  maintained 
for  centuries  a  civilization  that  has  been  the  envy  of  nations 
ever  since. 

In  history  man  is  to  be  found,  and  better  still  in  literature. 
As  it  is  now  taught,  history  seems  to  have  lost  much  of  its 
native  charm.  One  can  understand  that  the  professional 
historian,  whose  aim  is  exact  truth,  should  brush  aside  the 
glittering  accretions  of  fiction  that  have  encrusted  it;  but 
truth,  thus  stripped,  is  often  shockingly  bare.  A  boy  who 
has  to  compass  in  a  year  the  events  of  the  earth  from  Adam 
to  Charlemagne,  with  all  the  interesting  features  left  out,  is 
not  thereby  encouraged  to  further  reading.  Would  he  not  get 
a  clearer  idea  of  how  the  world  wags  if  he  spent  that  time  on 
one  period  or  one  country,  and  would  he  not  be  likelier  to 
ask  for  more  ?  Children  are,  and  ought  to  be,  romantic. 
Why  should  not  their  love  of  romance  be  at  once  gratified 
and  utilized  ?  History,  for  them,  at  least,  ought  to  be 
romantic,  and  so  it  used  to  be.  William  Tell  with  his  apple 
is  not  only  more  seductive  than  the  economic  condition  of 
Switzerland  under  the  administration  of  Gessler,  he  is  more 
historical;  for  he  has  been  during  the  centuries  a  part  of 
the  consciousness  of  Europe  and  America,  influencing  the 
emotions  of  men  and  the  current  of  events,  whereas  the 


174  OLD  AND  NEW 

economic  condition  of  Switzerland  under  Gessler  has  never 
influenced  anything  or  moved  anybody  since  his  remote 
time.  What  really  matters  is  the  enduring  and  widespread 
belief  that  such  and  such  things  happened,  and  the  ex- 
pression of  that  belief  in  word  or  deed  through  all  the  gen- 
erations. Of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  fable  should  be 
presented  as  fact,  but  when  fable  is  more  important  than  fact, 
it  should  be  presented  in  some  fashion,  as  a  significant  por- 
tion of  our  human  heritage.  We  must  not  let  die  the  stories 
that  have  lived  so  long;  we  must  not  cast  them  out  to  make 
room  for  expositions  which,  creating  no  reaction  save  weari- 
ness, can  hardly  make  a  lasting  impression. 

In  Anatole  France's  charming  autobiographical  sketch, 
Le  petit  Pierre,  a  certain  M.  Dubois,  after  listening  to  a 
couple  of  rather  high-flown  stories  of  contemporary  youth- 
ful heroism,  is  impelled  to  discourse  as  follows:  "  All  these 
noble  incidents,  all  these  glorious  speeches  are  nothing  but 
fables  and  empty  rumors.  When  it  is  impossible  to  report 
accurately  what  is  said  and  done  in  a  quiet,  attentive  com- 
pany, what  probability  is  there,  my  dear  lady,  that  a  gesture 
or  a  word  can  be  caught  amidst  the  tumult  of  battle  ?  I  do 
not  criticize  your  two  anecdotes,  gentlemen,  for  being  im- 
aginary and  having  no  foundation  in  fact,  but  for  being 
inartistically  and  unnaturally  conceived,  devoid  of  that  fair 
simplicity  which  is  the  only  passport  through  the  ages. 
That  is  why  it  is  best  to  leave  them  to  moulder  in  the  al- 
manacs. Historical  truth  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  noble 
examples  of  heroism  which  fly  from  century  to  century  on 
the  lips  of  men:  their  only  basis  is  art  and  poetry.  I  do 
not  know  whether  young  Bara,  when  the  Chouans  promised 
to  spare  him  if  he  would  cry  '  Vive  le  roi,'  really  responded 
'  Vive  la  Republique '  and  fell  pierced  by  twenty  bayonet 
wounds.  I  do  not  know,  and  never  can  know.  But  I  do 


SCHOOL  175 

know  that  the  image  of  this  boy,  who  offered  up  to  freedom 
his  life  still  in  the  flower,  brings  tears  to  the  eyes  and  makes 
the  heart  burn,  and  that  no  better  symbol  of  sacrifice  can  be 
conceived.  I  know  also  —  I  know  it  best  of  all  —  that 
when  the  sculptor  David  shows  me  this  child,  in  his  pure, 
lovely  nakedness,  surrendering  himself  to  death  with  the 
serenity  of  the  wounded  Amazon  in  the  Vatican,  pressing  his 
cockade  to  his  heart  and  clutching  in  his  cold  hand  the  drum- 
stick with  which  he  led  the  attack,  the  miracle  is  performed, 
the  young  hero  is  created,  Bara  lives,  Bara  will  never  die." 

Perhaps  these  tales,  after  all,  find  their  most  appropriate 
place  in  literature,  the  great  storehouse  of  man-lore.  More 
living  than  any  who  figure  in  official  history  are  the  char- 
acters we  meet  in  fiction  and  biography.  These  have  been 
understood,  through  and  through,  by  their  authors,  who 
make  us  in  turn  understand  them  —  better  indeed  than  we 
understand  most  of  the  people  who  constantly  surround  us. 
I  am  speaking,  naturally,  of  the  great  works  of  literature, 
the  works  of  masters,  which  have  survived  the  test  of  time. 
In  them  we  must  seek  the  real  types  of  our  kind.  With  the 
exception  of  near  relatives  and  a  dozen  friends,  how  shadowy 
are  the  men  and  women  of  our  real  lives,  compared  to  the 
memory  of  those  with  whom  we  have  lived  in  books,  the 
books  of  our  youthful  reading!  I  am  not  a  recluse.  I  have 
moved  about  a  good  bit  and  have  always  been  interested  in 
my  human  environment;  but  my  material  specimens  have 
never  displayed  themselves  with  such  rich  variety  as  my 
bookish  ones,  never  let  me  read  their  minds  so  explicitly, 
never  put  themselves  into  such  illustrative  situations,  never 
grouped  themselves  so  contrastingly,  never  been  so  con- 
secutively on  exhibition. 

Literature  is  not  only  a  fund  of  information  and  delight, 
it  is  a  bond.  It  links  us  to  all  the  people,  the  world  over, 


176  OLD  AND  NEW 

who  have  read  the  same  books.  We  are  like  strangers  who 
have  a  lot  of  common  friends.  Thus  it  promotes  compre- 
hension and  fellowship,  if  not  from  China  to  Peru,  at  least 
from  London  to  San  Francisco  —  and  further,  if  we  are 
multilingual.  Hence  the  value  of  foreign  languages,  which 
provide  us,  into  the  bargain,  with  a  fresh  set  of  types  and  a 
broader  outlook  on  humanity.  Once  on  a  French  steamer, 
during  a  particularly  stormy  and  perilous  winter  voyage,  I 
met  a  Greek  who,  as  I  accidentally  discovered,  had  read  The 
MUl  on  the  Floss;  and  forthwith  we  were  countrymen.  But 
one  may  claim  as  literary  companions  not  the  living  alone, 
but  the  dead.  We  may  consort  with  Milton's  first  readers, 
we  may  mingle  with  Shakespeare's  first  auditors,  or,  if  we 
know  Latin  and  Greek,  we  may  hobnob  with  those  beings  of 
old  who  listened  to  Cicero  and  Demosthenes.  The  art 
museums  are  peopled  with  them,  white,  silent,  majestic. 
What  an  impression  they  made  on  a  certain  small  boy,  in 
the  Louvre  and  the  Vatican;  how  he  longed  to  be  taken  into 
their  company  and  transported  to  their  glorious  age!  Yes, 
surely,  the  ancients  after  all  are  the  most  romantic  of  peoples, 
and  their  languages  the  most  alluring.  When  I  conjured  up 
the  forms  of  those  stern  patriots  of  whom  I  read  in  Viri 
Roma,  I  used  to  be  all  eagerness  to  learn  how  they  looked 
and  lived,  and  how  they  talked.  It  has  been  a  mystery  to 
me  that  children  can  find  Latin  uninteresting;  some  Educa- 
cational  Expert  must  have  put  them  up  to  it.  Perhaps, 
though,  they  begin  reading  too  late;  I  remember  I  started 
before  I  had  finished  the  declensions.  Perhaps  they  have 
not  been  exposed  to  the  spell  of  story  and  picture.  In  a 
school  I  visited  last  year,  the  lowest  class  was  using  as  one  of 
its  text-books  in  English  a  fascinating  little  history  of  Greece, 
full  of  beautiful  illustrations  —  a  proper  stimulus  to  classic 
studies  in  a  subsequent  year. 


SCHOOL  177 

I  cannot  close  without  another  quotation  from  Le  petit 
Pierre,  whose  feelings,  on  his  introduction  to  that  world  of 
enchantment,  were  so  similar  to  mine.  By  mistake,  when  he 
first  was  sent  to  school,  he  was  put  into  a  Latin  reading  class, 
although  he  had  never  studied  grammar  of  any  kind  and 
knew  not  a  word  of  Latin.  "  M.  Grepinet  was  a  very  kind 
man,  unless  I  am  greatly  mistaken,  and  a  good  teacher.  It 
is  not  his  fault  if  I  got  little  profit  from  his  lessons.  At  the 
sound  of  his  voice  I  saw  entrancing  scenes  issuing  as  if  by 
magic  from  a  book  that  was  more  illegible  for  me  than  the 
most  illegible  of  scrawls,  the  De  Viris.  A  shepherd  is  dis- 
covering amid  the  Tiber's  rushes  two  new-born  children 
nursed  by  a  she-wolf.  He  takes  them  home  to  his  cabin, 
where  his  wife  cares  for  them  and  brings  them  up  as  trades- 
men, not  knowing  that  these  twins  are  of  the  blood  of  kings 
and  gods.  I  could  see  them,  while  the  master's  voice  evoked 
them  from  the  darkness  of  the  text,  the  heroes  of  this  won- 
derful story,  Numitor  and  Amulius,  kings  of  Alba  Longa, 
Rhea  Silvia,  Faustulus,  Acca  Laurentia,  Remus  and  Rom- 
ulus. Their  adventures  absorbed  all  the  faculties  of  my 
soul;  the  very  beauty  of  their  names  made  them  seem  more 
beautiful  to  me.  When  Justine  came  to  take  me  home,  I 
described  to  her  the  two  twins  and  the  she-wolf  that  nursed 
them,  and  finally  told  her  the  whole  story  I  had  just  learned, 
a  story  to  which  she  would  have  paid  more  attention,  had 
she  been  less  excited  over  a  counterfeit  two-franc  piece  which 
the  coal-man  had  passed  of!  on  her  that  very  day."  It  is  the 
fate  of  William  Tell  all  over  again,  economics  intruding  on 
romance. 


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